THE WORK OF ART IN THE FIELD OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION: THE PRINCIPW OF LEGITIMIZATION

IN THE DIGITAL ERA

N:~talia Tkachev Bachelor of A m , University of British Columbia, 2000

TI-IESIS SUBMITTED IN PAKTIAJ, FUJ.,FILLMENT OF

THE REQU1KI;;MENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

In the School of C;otnmunication

8 Natalia Tkachev 2006

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

Spring 2006

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Degree:

Title of Thesis:

Examining Committee:

Natalia Tkachev

Master of Acts

The Work of Art in the Field of Cultural Production: The Principle of Legitimization in The Digital Era

Chair:

Dr. Roman Onufrijchuk Senior Supervisox

Dr. Martin Laba Supervisor

External Examiner

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Abstract

This thesis deconstructs the field of cultural production by examining contemporary

institutional framework of the arts and symbolic struggles that occur in effort to maintain or

subvert established alignment of power. I will : q y e that the field of cultural production

today resembles a market structure with increasing demands on all agents in the field for

internationalization and globahation. Cultural producers today assert their autonomy and

adapt to current structure of the art institutiond framework by appropriating recent

technological developments. I argue that cultural producers today challenge estaldished

framework of the field of cultural production by the particular appropriation of the Internet

and its possibilities. This work will introduce changing cultural politics of the art world, and

provide an informed inquiry on an emerging phenomenon of on-line based nomadic digital

art galleries.

Keywords: the field of cultural production, symbolic capital, the arts, the work of art,

the institutional framework, principle of legitimization, the art gallery, the artist, the

art dealer, cultural producer, Conceptual art, the Internet, nomadic online based

gallery.

. . . ill

Dedication

To my family and friends who supported me in various ways through this journey.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge Roman Onufrijchuk, who guided me through difficult

times, gave me ideas and had faith in me.

Table of Contents

. . Approval .... . . . . ... . . . . . . .. . .. .. .. . . . . . . . .... . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... .. . .. ..... .. .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. .. ...-. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... . . . u

... Abstract ................................................................................................................................... UI

Acknowledgements .... . . . . ... . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. .... ... . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . .. . . . . . ..... . .. .. . . . . . . .. . . .. .v

Table of Contents .................................................................................................................. vi

Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1

Chapter One. The work of art: the inexorable reality of the field of cultural production ................................................................................ , .............. 6

The field of cultural production ............................................................................................. 7

The work of art and the social context: institutional theory .......................................... 14

The art gallery: an agent of the field .................................................................................. 21

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . .. .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. ...... ....... . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. .. . . . . . .. ... -25

Chapter Two. Conceptual art: the rise and fall of disruptive impulse. ................................... 27 The emergence of Conceptual art: the catalyst for changmg practices and attitudes ............... ........ ...................................... ....................... ............................... .. ............. 28

The world outside of art: Themes and issues during the emergence of Conceptual art and their effect on the field of cultural production. ............................. 39

The new art dealer and the symptoms of globalism ......................................................... 43

The end of Conceptual era .................................................................................... .............. 51

Chapter Three. Reconfiguration of the contemporary field of cultural production ....................................................................................................... 54 The legacy of Conceptual art and its prophesy for the global art world ...................... 55 The Internet and the contemporary social context ......................................................... 59

The current structure of the field of cultural production ............................................... 63

Other Gallery: a new cultural logc .................................................................................... 66

Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 75

Appendices .......................................................................................................... 80

A p p e n h I: Interview with Paul Butler (Other Gallery) ............................................... 81

Appendix 11: Interview with Sarah Macaulay (Blanket gallery) .................................... 84

Appendix 111: Interview with Keith Jones ......................................................................... 87

References .......................................................................................................... 89

INTROD'ICJCTION

This thesis deconstructs the field of the arts and examines the struggle over the

monopoly and power to formulate and validate 'legitimate' art and artistic practice. In

particular, I investigate how the Internet challenges the established power relatic'ns in the

field of arts. I argue that the lstribution of symbolic capital in the field of visual arts, i.e. the

legitimization and validation of artistic practice, the artists, their prestige and recognition, is

being subverted and redistributed due to the contemporary phenomena of the Internet and

its effects.

Chapter One introduces the theory of the field by Pierre Bourdieu and suggests that

the art world can be analyzed through the field of cultural production. The analysis reveals

that the established institutional framework of the arts produces a specific social order that

imposes an unequal distribution of symbolic capital. Chapter Two continues with the

disruptive impulse of the Conceptual Art movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Conceptual

artists, in their attempt to subvert the institutional framework of the arts, developed a

momentum that challenged and undermined the established monopoly of the art world that

defines 'legitimate' ut. The disruptive impulse generated in this era was made largely possible

due to the introduction of the philosophical lscipline into the production of the work of art

by the artists. Further, the emergence and application of information technologies, corporate

capital and the introduction of the corporate collector made the Conceptualists an influential

art movement that subverted the structure of the art world. The contemporary global art

world is increasingly influenced by market forces and is now challenged and simultaneously

enhanced by the emergence and application of the Internet. In my third chapter, I suggest

that the Internet, when applied to the field of cultural production, offers a new potential for

cultural producers to alter the established institutional framework of the arts and to alleviate

struggles that persist over the distribution of symbolic capital. Particularly, the recent

phenomenon of nomadic online-based art galleries allows all members of the arts to be

liberated from the burden of established institutional frameworks empowering members of

the artistic field to take more control in the processes of production, circulation and

distribution of art.

It is important to acknowledge Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of

Mechanical Reproduction" since h s thesis unfolds a sociological dimension of the post-

Benjaminian work of art. The Internet not only :xllows unprecedented and instant

reproduction of the visual culture', it makes the work of art nomadic and the access to it

unlimited. Benjamin's theory must be taken as a general background for the foreground

issue of this thesis: the use of art as a cultural weapon as well as a commodity in -the context

of the technological advancements that are currently taking place in our society.

This thesis also is concerned with my recent personal investment in the field of

cultural production. I officially became a fledging art dealer in April 2005 when I started my

own art gallery. I represent seven young, emerging contemporary artists and org:mnke and

curate art exhibitions every five weeks. I attended my &st international art fair last October

and have plans to go to many more. As :I relatively new member of the arts community I

strive to be part of various cuhral formation to learn about the current state of the artistic

field in its many facets. I have become p : ~ of the Contemporary Art Society, and I have a

' The reproduction of visual culture by means of the Internet is an issue outside of the scope of this thesis.

2

membership in both the Vancouver Art GaUe~y and the Contemporary Art Gallery. I visit a

number of artists in their working studios and attend most art exhibitions in Vancouver to

keep up with the contemporary developments of artistic practice. More importantly, I

continuously attempt to convince the rest of the art world and the community at large that

the art I represent is legtimate and worthy of attention. Having no previous gallery

experience, I constantly come up with many questions in the process of establishing myself

as a knowledgeable and credible art dealer locally and internationally.

One such question is why and how a cultural producer authorizes and va.lidates

his/her cultural practice and makes it into legitimate art. I realize now that it is my

responsibility and goal as an art dealer to validate the art I represent, to make it legtimate. I

also realize that the artistic field is highly competitive for that recognition and validation. I

am personally forced to be part this competition since, having a certain degree of power to

formulate and construct what 'culturally significalnt' art is, I am faced with making a choice

with what artists I d recognize as 'legitimate' within the realm of my gallery and the art

worldz. In response to my immediate experience, there are two important realities that need

particular attention.

First, the art world is a large social organism that includes a variety of individual

cultural producers, including members of academia, art critics, artists, art dealers, collectors

and the audience at large. It also incorporates an institutional framework, which sets a power

dynamic and contributes to the reproduction of the established social order along with its

inequalities. The work of art is not produced in a vacuum: within its practice, it carries its

2 To reiterate, as an art dealer, I assist the audience in acquiring the 'important' and 'significant' works of contemporary arts. I do so first by giving an opportunity to the artist to exhibit his/her art in my pllery. The mandate of my art cgallery, Blanket Gallery, can be found on www.blanketgallery.com/about.

3

own institutionalization. For example, the institutional web of the art world produces its

symbolic meaning and value. Second, the art world is a competitive field that can be

described by struggles among groups and individual members who seek to enforce their

version of legitimate art. In other words, the dynamic of the art world's power relations

encompasses the struggles over the monopoly of cultural authority and legitimization and

the monopoly to maintain the status quo in a laqger social realm. The struggles to be

recognized and validated within the art world often take place on a variety of levels: they take

place among artists, who aspire to be accepted within their peer groups; to be represented by

better commercial galleries; and to find support and recognition from patrons and public art

establishments. These struggles further take place among art dealers, who aspire to gain the

support of art critics, collectors and the audience at large. They also take place among public

museums, art schools and artist run centres, whlch continuously attempt to acquire more

funding from the government, private founclations, and the private sector for their curatorial

and educational programs. In other words, the field of arts is a field of struggle which, by in

large, affects the structure of the art world and affects cultural practices of artistic:

production, its reception, circulation and distribution. The work of art is "a historically-

specific and socially constructed concept, as that it is defined, more specifically, by what

artists do w i t h the institutional and market structures which support them" (Mdes, 2000, p.

33). It "affirm[s] a world of privilege, interpretation, alienation and disempowerrrtent" W e s ,

2000, p. 33).

This thesis is thus scholarly and personal. It offers a social commentary on the

contemporary field of cultural production and the new cultural logic that is currently being

shaped with the help of the Internet and its effects. I find this investigation critic:d to my

immediate life experiences, as this study offers an outlook on the art gallery as an institution

in the field of cultural production and allows me to vanguard and follow the e m e r p g

cultural formations in the field of my profession.

CHAPTER ONE. THE WORK OF ART:

THE INEXORABLE REALITY OF THE FIELD OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION

This chapter establishes the correlation between the work of art' and an institutional

context in which it is produced, circulated and dktributed. I will argue that an essential

condition for the work of art to be produced, circulated and distributed, it is becoming part

of the social formation (the art world), which is governed by a set of particular la.ws and its

own power dynamic. When the work of art is produced and is ready to be show11 to the

audience, it cannot be recognized as 'the work of art' u n d it has been accepted by the

gatekeepers of the art world: art galleries, museurns, academics, art collectors and art critics,

among others. The recognition and acceptance by the art world and its power to select and

impose what is legtimate art and who is a legitimate artist, unveils the established

dependency of the work of art on the highly controlled institutional framework of the arts.

To embark on this argument, it is necessary to develop a theoretical framework,

which will define the work of art, the artist, the art gallery, and the artistic field. This

framework wdl introduce the field of cultural production and aid in contextualizing these

defimtions and establish their place w i t h that held. A theoretical framework I establish

here shares close affinity with the works of Pierre Bourdieu, Janet Wolff, Peter Burger and

Garry Hagberg, social scientists who have written their own, yet interrelated versions of the

sociology of the production of the work of art. With the help of these authors, and in

For the purposes of ths discussion, the work of art is referred to the work of visual art (in whatever medium it may be produced). The work of art will be interchangeable with the terms artwork and art.

particular, Pierre Bourdieu, I wdl introduce and utilrze the concept of the field of cultural

production as a schematic ground where art is produced, received and distributed. I will

further utilize this schematic ground to define the work of art and apply the Institutional

Theory of art founded by George Dickie. I will also offer an outlook on the art gallery as a

key social institution in the processes of the production, distribution and reception of art.

This chapter concludes with a discussion on the relationship between the work of art and the

art gallery, and the influences that the field of cultural production casts on the two. The

overall argument of this chapter will reveal and confirm Garry Hagberg's statement that the

work of art "has become [the product ofl an arbitrary exercise of power and authority by

persons strategically placed within the various institutions of the arts" (Hagberg, 2002, p.

487).

The field of cultural production

The concept of the field of cultural production was introduced in the early 1970s by

Pierre Bourdieu's 'theory of practice.' Bourdieu's methods, based on 'radical

contextualization, examination of the set of social conditions and cultural practices of the

production, circulation and consumption of symbolic goods4. One of Bourdeu's central

concerns is the role of social structures where imequal power relations are accepred as

legitimate, embedded in cultural practices, and taken for granted in the society at large.

Bourdieu's theory of the field reveals the material and symbolic production of cultural goods

and takes into account the mediators who contribute to the work's meaning and

Bourdieu uses three levels of analysis, whlch include socio-historic, discursive and interpretive analyses. Socio- historic analysis examines the conditions of production of any symbolic goods w i h any given field of human activities; discursive analysis offers a powerful tool to investigate an internal organization of symbolic forms and, finally, the interpretive analysis makes possible the creative construction of meaning.

legitimization as their ultimate hnction to maintain 'the universe of belief5 within the

cultural field. T h s is the central element in Bourdieu's theory of the field and is critical to my

thesis: I am concerned with the unequal power relations in the field of cultural production. I

am also concerned with methods of resistance that the various agents in the field of cultural

production develop to subvert the established power dynamic. I chose to rely on Bourdleu's

theory as it effectively addresses the relationshp between cultural practices and larger social

phenomena and examines the relationship between systems of thought, social institutions

and forms of material and symbolic power and provides a powerful tool for social analysis in

the cultural industry. For the purpose of this chapter, Bourdieu's theory addresses the

relationship between the production of art, its symbolic meaning and larger cultural

phenomena. I establish a direct connection between Bourdieu's work and my overall thesis

question: how is the distribution of the symbolic capital in the field of cultural producaon

being altered and subverted due to the contemporary phenomena of digitization (the

Internet).

The field of cultural production is 'the universe of belief and, similar to a.ny other

field including political, economic or scientific, it is a social formation determined by social

situations and governed by a set of objective s o c d relations, laws of operation and its own

power dynamic" The field is determined by the power relations and the symbolic struggles

to either sustain or subvert the existing power dynamic. These struggles, which are imposed

on all agents of the field:

... weight with a particular brutality on the new entrants - assume a splecial form: they are indeed based on a very particular form of capital, whc:h is

j A term coined by Bourdieu to describe the field of cultural production. Bourdieu predominantly uses a literary field in his applic-ation of the theory of the filed of cultur:d production,

it is however also effective to apply his theory onto the field. of visual arts.

both the instrument and the object of competitive struggles within the 1-ields, that is, symbolic capital as a capital of recognition or consecration, institutionahzed or not, that the different agents or institutions have been able to accumulate in the course of previous struggles, at the cost of specific activities and specific strategies (Bourdieu &Johnson, 1993, p. 12).

Each field has its particular structure determined by the agents who are strategcally

placed within that field, who operate in a set of social relations and conditions and who are

continuously in flux by the process of position-taking in that field. The position of agents

"implies an objective definition of their practice ,and of the products resulting from it"

(Bourdieu &Johnson, 1993, p. 131)~. The field becomes a dynamic concept in that a change

in the agent's position means a change i n the field's structure. The dynamic of the field

depends on the distribution of available positions and by characteristics of the agents

occupying them. The positions and position-taking by the agents within the field are

determined by strategy and trajectory chosen by the agents within that field. The strategy

results from an agent's dispositions toward a certain practice as well as the stakes of power in

the field. Trajectory is determined by tht: successive positions that an agent may occupy

within the field: "Trajectory is a way in which the relationship between the agent and the

field is objectified" (Bourdieu &Johnson, 1993, p. 17). The agents occupy a variety of

positions and employ their trajectories to engage in competition for control of the interests

and resources specific to the field. In the field of cultural production, this competition takes

place over "the authority inherent in recognition, consecration, and prestige" (Bourdieu &

Johnson, 1993, p. 7). The field's dynamic is then inevitably influenced by the stru,gles

among these agents to occupy these positions within that field. The positions occupied by

the agents of the field (i.e. the producers, artists, museums, public institutions, commercial

7 The relationship between positions and position-takings depends on the dispositions of the agents, or their roots in a specific "habitus", one of the central concepts of Bourdieu's theory of practice referring to formation of individuals in their childhood setting, which is beyond the scope of this thesis.

galleries, etc) and the processes of legtimating of the cultural products, and its consequent

power relations determine the field's dynamic w i t h the broader field of power. The field of

cultural production is determined by the strugle between the producers of the work of art

and the producers of its meaning. Cultural legtimacy, recognition and prestige appear to be

the fundamental norm in the field of restricted cultural productionR and represent the

symbolic capital within that field. The acquisition of symbolic capital is an exercise of power

and implies the principle of selection utLLizetl by different groups of agents competing for

this cultural legitimacy and is determined wib a system of social relations.

The cultural field in Bourdieu's view' is the universe of belief where symbolic

capital1" is an essential element, a currency that is not reducible to economic capital.

Symbolic capital determines a specific economy of the field and is based on the speculation

that what constitutes a cultural work, is its aesthetic and social value. Symbolic ca.pita1 in the

field of cultural production includes an authorized validation of a cultural producer and a

cultural product as legitimate according to the existing standards and ttends of th.e art world

and the field as a whole. For example, the level of prestige of an artist, an art gallery or the

art dealer and the recognition of an artist as a legitimate cultural producer in various art

world circles are the symbolic currency to be applied within the field in exchange for

monetary gain'1. The important issue at stake in the field of cultural production "is the

definition of the h i t s of the field, that is, of legitimate participation in the struggles "

Restricted field of cultural production refers to the art that has been produced by the autonomous principle of production (the examples are avant-garde art, art for art's sake) and is the opposite end of the unrestricted or commercial art that is committed to economic principles an.d includes works produced for monetary gain (Webb, Schirato, & Danaher, 2002) 9 Bourdieu dissects the field of cultural production into two subfields: the field of restricted artistic production (i.e. high art) and the field of large-scale production, mase or popular artistic production. 10 Bourdieu for instance counts academic and linlingustic c:~pital to the symbolic capital where the values are held in formal education and/or linguistic competence in a specific linguistic market (Bourdieu &Johnson, 1993). fl Interestingly, the works of art that are created prirnanly for financial gain rather than for art's sake is considered to be 'commercial' and thus inferior in the artrstic and academic circles (Webb et al., 2002).

(Bourdieu &Johnson, 1993, p. 14). When it is suggested that "this isn't art", it means that a

cultural product is denied its legitimate existence and excluded from the 'game' of the field

(BourQeu &Johnson, 1993, p. 14). This is what Bourdieu calls 'symbolic exclu:ion', "the

effort to impose a definition of legtimate practice, to constitute, for instance, as an eternal

and universal essence, or historical definition of an art or a genre conespondmg to the

specific interests of those who hold a certain specific capital" (Bourdieu &Johnson, 1993, p.

14). The field of cultural production then becomes the symbolic site of struggle over the

power to enforce the dominant definition of the artist and the artwork and "to delimit the

population of those entitled to take part in the struggle to define the [artists and the

artwork]" (Bourdieu &Johnson, 1993, p. 42). The fundamental stake in the field of artistic

production is thus the monopoly of artistic and cultural legtimacy, the monopolv of the

abihty to consecrate producers and products. An effort, or a strategy, speaking in Bourdieu's

terms, to impose a d e h t i o n of a legitimate practice becomes "the rule of the game" and is

imposed on everyone who participates it1 the artistic field and who wants to acquire the

field's symbolic capital, i.e. the recognition, prestige and legitirnization of the artwork and the

artist, the art gallery and the art dealer. A successful imposition of h s definition IS an

accomplishment, a measure of success in the art world. The rule of the game is then a

symbolic struggle "for symbolic domination over a particular use of a particular category of

the sign and, thereby, over the way the natural and social world is envisaged" (Bourdieu &

Johnson, 1993, p. 14). This symbolic domination rs forced on every agent in the field of

cultural production and especially on the 'new entrants' as a right to admittance into the

field. The artist and the art gallery as agents of the field are confined by the structures of the

field of cultural production and therefore are limited to those structures. Due to uneven

distribution of symbolic capital, the field of cultmal production is the site of struggles with

specific stakes for power, recognition and prestige where agents continuously atrempt to

transform or maintain "the established relation of forces: each of the agents commits the

capital that he has acquired through previous struggles to strategies that depend for their

general direction on his position in the power struggle, that is, on his specific capital"

(Bourdieu &Johnson, 1993, p. 1 3)12.

It is essential in the field of cultural production to consider not only the material but

also a symbolic production of the work of art, which essentially constitutes the value of that

work. The agents in the field of cultural production, including curators, art dealers, artists,

publishers, collectors and the au&ence/spectator, have an established function of being

cultural mediators and producers of the meaning and value of the work of art, creating

cultural legdmacy, the ultimate symbolic currency w i t h the field. The authority of these

agents is determined by symbolic profit and power, whlch is sustained by the social

apparatus encompassing museums and public institutions, art galleries, art fairs, a r t schools,

art histories, and schools of thought. For instance, one such colossal producer of' meaning

for the artwork and its legitimacy is the Vancouver Art Gallery. It is the largest public

institution in westem Canada that captures the contemporary developments of artistic

practice and significantly contributes to the construction of the historical art field locally and

intemationallYl3. The inclusion of an artist in the Vancouver Art Gallery show would

legitimize an artist and his/her artistic practice in the art world. This legitimization would

provide the artist with a great deal of symbolic capital, sipficantly increasing the recognition

and prestige of owning the artwork by this artist. It is therefore generally desirable for the

artist to be exhibited at institutions that have such influence on the field of cultural

'2Bourdieu provides an example the struggles of ever-emerging avant-garde against already recognized 'avant- garde'. '3 The Vancouver Art Gallery: http://www.vanartgallery.I~c.ca/about~llery.cfm

production. 'The field of cultural production is competitive and the competition among the

agents within the field concerns prestige, legititnization, artistic celebrity and hence power to

influence the processes within the field.

Given that works of art exist as symbolic objects only if they are known and recognized, that is, socially instituted as works of art and received by spectators capable of knowing and recognizing them as such, the sociology of art . . . has to take as its object not only the material production but also the symbolic production of the work, i.e:. the production of the value of the work or, whlch amounts to the same thing, of belief in the value of the work (Bourdieu &Johnson, 1993, p. 37).

Structurally, a field always has a degree of autonomy from other social forces and

fields. In the field of cultural production thts autonomy is measured by a direct c,onnection

between the work of art and the irnmedlate social structure thts work of art and its symbolic

meaning. The cultural field, in other words, determines the processes of production,

circulation and distribution of the work of art. However, external determinants, such as

economic, political forces and social or cultural phenomena, also have an effect on the

processes within the field, but only when these forces are adopted into that field. "The fields

structure refracts, much like a prism, external determinants in terms of its own logic, and it is

only through such refraction that external factors can have an effect on the field" (Bourdieu

&Johnson, 1993, p. 14). Therefore, the level of autonomy in the field of cultural production

is determined by the field's ability to interpret and! convert these external determinants into

its own logic. This is an important point for the current discussion since it tackles the field's

abdity to adopt external cultural and social phenomena into the field's own logic. Chapter 2

addresses how philosophy, the expansion of corporate capital and the emergence of

information technologies were translated into and applied to the field of cultural production

and how methods of resistance were developed in the struggle to subvert the established

distribution of the field's symbolic capital. The third chapter addresses how the Internet is

currently being translated into the field and, in particular, how the distribution of symbolic

capital is affected by the Internet's possibilities.

In summary, the field of cultural production offers a conceptual framework, which

establishes and explains the external and internal forces that influence the production,

circulation and appropriation/appreciation of the work of art. The level of analysis that the

theory of the field offers, allows us to take into account important aspects of cultural

practice, strategies and trajectories that are used by individual agents within this field and the

relationship between the field and larger fields of' power. The theory of the cultural field has

an overriding concern to reconstruct an artistic field at a given moment: the work of art is

produced in a specific historical situation and within certain institutional frameworks by the

agents applying strategies and following certain trajectories specific to the field. ?he

reception, circulation and consumption of the work of art then also takes place it1 a

particular historical moment. Hence, the significance of this framework to this thesis is that

the field theory allows us to e x p h how the contemporary processes of producb.on,

circulation, consumption, and most importantly, the distribution of this symbolic capital are

currently being configured.

The work of art and the social context: institutional theory

The purpose of the following discussion is to define the work of art in its

institutional context, i.e. the producer of its symbolic meaning and to gain an understanding

of the symbolic struggle within the field of cultural production over the monopolies of

artistic and cultural legitimacy. According to Bourdieu's 'universe of belief, "the work of art

is an object which exists as such only by virtue of the collective belief whch knows and

acknowledges it as a work of art" (BourQeu &Johnson, 1993, p. 35). It is a manifestation of

the field of cultural production in its torality where "all the powers in the field, and all the

determinisms inherent in its structure and fiinctioning are concentrated" (Bourdieu &

Johnson, 1993, p. 37). As an echo of Bourdieu, the work of art has also been described by

Stephen Greenblatt, who argues, "the work of art is the product of negotiation between a

creator, equipped with a complex, communally shared repertoire of conventions, and the

institutions and practices. In order to achieve negotiations, artists need to create a currency

that is valid for meaningful, mutually profitable exchange.. ." (Greenblatt inBourdieu &

Johnson, 1993, p. 272). The definition of the artwork must take into account not only the

social conditions of the producers (artists, critics, dealers, patrons), "but also the social

conditions of the production of a set of objects socially constituted as works of art, i.e. the

condition of production of the field of social agents (e.g. museums, galleries, academics,

etc.), which help to define and produce the value of the works of art" (Bourdieu &Johnson,

1993, p. 37).

Let us look into the evolution of the social status of the work of art and the artist,

wkch, arguably commenced with the developmelits of the art market mechanisrr~s as early as

the 18th century. "Not until the 18th century, with the rise of bourgeois society and the

seizure of political power by a bourgeoisie that had gained economic strength, do a

systematic aesthetics as a philosophical discipline and a new concept of autonomous art

come into being.. ." (Burger, 1992, p. 57). The work of art is necessarily a social product,

which started its Qstinct evolution in the Mddle and served as a cult object in the

social institution of rehgon. Burger identifies art in terms of its production, hncuon and

'J The duration of the 'medieval' period in the Latin West ca.n be defined approximately from c. 600 to c. 1400 (Bredin, 2002).

reception and offers a historical typology that defines the work of art in relation to its social

immediate sphere. So-called sacral art was produced collectively as craft and received also

collectively via the institution of the religion. The production, distribution and the reception

of the work of art during the Middle Ages was predominantly controlled by the mstitution of

church. Moreover, the status of the artist was defined by the mastery and skiU she/he

possessed: art was a craft similar to carpentry, shoemaking or writing and part of' general

trade (Webb et al., 2002). The next dtstmctive stage in the evolution of art as a social

product is marked by the emergence of royalty as a social class such as the court of Louis

XIV. Courtly art started to serve the role of a representational object serving "the glory of

the prince and the self-portrayal of courtly socie~y" (Burger, 1992, p. 57). Courtly art is part

of courtly life as much as the sacral art was part of the life of the faithful. The work of art

was allowed a certain degree of emancipation, which commenced the process by which art

was establishmg itself as part of a distinct social sphere. More importantly, the change was

taking place due to the rise of science and the proliferation of universities and ac:~dernic

learning. It was then, during the Renaissmce, when the artists started to break amay from

general economy and acquire a separate social sphere. Therefore, the difference between

sacral art and courtly art is in their dtfferent approaches towards the processes of art

production. With the emergence of 'courtly art'. artists created their work as inditiduals and

realized the uniqueness in their work. The reception of the work of courtly art remained

collective, yet its content was no longer sacral but sociable. By being classified as cult and as

an object of glory for the court, the work of art was put to specific use and defined by its

purpose in the society: it was integral to the habitual everyday practice of the faithful and of

the royalty. Further, the emergence of bourgeois :art around the 18th century marked the

separation of the work of art and its production from its traditional social functions. Due to

this developed autonomy, the work of art, its production and reception now had a purely

representational function and served no immediate purpose in the society; it rather "satisfies

residual needs, needs that have become submerged in the life praxis of bourgeois society"

(Burger, 1992, p. 57). The production as well :IS reception of art became indvidual acts.

However the notion of an artist as an independent agent and a creator could never be

sustained. Although being able to retreat into its own social niche, the artists, pa~rdcularly in

the western hemisphere, were increasingly dependent on the patronage system s i ~ h as

private and public grants and funding. The artist:; could not simply afford to be distanced

from the economic and social sphere, as they we:re dependant on the range of collective

social frameworks, institutions, and agents assisting them in producing and exhibiting their

h a 1 product, the work of art. Evidently, the social function and the status of the work of

art and the artist changed over time; however what seems to remain constant is the

inexorable presence of the field of cultural production which defines what is to be called art

and which establishes the processes of and institutional frameworks for its production,

circulation and consumption.

To understand the role of the institution in the production of the work of art and its

symbolic value, it is essential to understand the work of art as a social product. Institutional

theory, whose theoretical premises were founded by the American philosopher George

Dickie in the late 1960s and 1970s, has been an important contributor to the overall

understanding of the work of art and its social production. The theory offers an explanation

of how objects (man and/or machine made) can be transformed into 'works of a d : the

theory is not concerned with the internal attributes of the work of art, but draws its

inspiration primarily from its external properties, i.e. its relational qualities.

The theory looks at "the institutional contexts in which the arts are created,

exhibited, interpreted, taught, acquired, and so forth" (Hagberg, 2002, p. 487). llickie's

Institutional Theory offers that "a work of art in the classificatory sense is a) an artefact, b) a

set of the aspects of which has had conferred upon it the status of candidate for appreciation

by some person or persons acting on behalf of a certain social institution (the an: world)"

(Warburton, 2003, p. 95). Diche examines an action on behalf of an institution within which

the artwork is produced as well as the establishment of its status as a candidate for

appreciation. According to Institutional Theory, any object, even without human

intervention, can become a work of art and a candidate for appreciation if exhibited in an art

gallery. Dickie states that to classify somethmg as art it is necessary to have an

understanding of art theory, knowledge of art history and to have an idea about the art

world, i.e. the production of art and its meaning must take place "within a framework of

historically evolved traditions and mutual understandings" (Warburton, 2003, p. 08). Diche

produces a classificatory definition of the work of art that, although not concerned with its

value, acknowledges the diversity of the artistic practices and offers a unifying consensus in

line of institutional theory. Embracing circularity, the definition clarifies that "[a] work of art

is an artifact of a kind created to be presented to :an art-world public" (Dickie in liagberg,

2002, p. 498). Dickie's outlook on how and why the work of art becomes 'the work of art7

unveils a mutually interdependent nature in between the work of art, its production and the

institutional context in which it exists.

Institutional Theory does not take into account the concept of symbolic capital and

symbolic struggle that takes place in the art world as it is concerned with the question of

belonging of an object to the category, i.e. art. The theory does not tackle the prolduction of

the value of the work of art and whether it is worth creating or exhibiting. In support of

Bourdieu's field of cultural production theory, the Institutional Theory of art is concerned

with the art world's nature and contest, i.e. "the expanding social and cultural network of

institutions or systems, or sub-systems mcludhg but not limited to curators, directors, critics,

viewers, audences, collectors, dealers, students, reachers, art schools, performer:;, writers,

,, actors, translators, publishers.. . and its effect on the production, circulation and

distribution of the work of art (Hagberg, 2002, p. 497)15. The Institutional Theory's

definition of the work of art, although helpful m grasping the social matrix within which the

work of art is produced and circulated, 1s open to powerful philosophical criticisms. Diclue's

theory focuses primarily on the processes that are hlfilled by the members of t h e art world,

i.e. their ability to call anything and everything to be works of art. This leaves no room to

examine the role of the artist in the creation of the artefact nor acknowledges pacjt nor

present artistic practices. The artist's intentionality as well as the precedent in amstic practice

can close this loophole. A new definition can be formulated as "an art work is a thing (item,

object, entity) that has been seriously intended for a regard-as-a-work-of-art - i.e regard as

any way pre-existing artworks are or were correctly regarded" (Levinson in Warburton, 2003,

p. 1 13)16. According to this definition, an object can be regarded as a work of art only if it

intended to be treated as such by its creator"'.

'5 It must be stressed that the notion of the art world, according to Dickie, is a loose concept that includes "anyone at all making a work of art, regardless of their level of slull, knowledge of art practices, awareness of the art scene or visual acumen" (Warburton, 2003, p. 100). The art world is not a trained elitist group, it is a broad concept that is open to all. This is a divergence with Bourdieu's theory of the field of cultural production. According to Bourdieu, all (and especially new) members of the art world are required to possess a certain amount of symbolic capital (academic training, field experience, symbolic power, etc.) to exert influence on the processes within the field (i.e. to formulate what is to be called a legitimate work of art). l6 Jerrold Levinson's intentional-htstorical definition of art has largely contributed to the overall understanding of the social nature of the work of art. '7 It should be stressed that Levinson's definition also includes the "art-unconscious' intentions ofthe artists, which can still make something as the work of art and which allows an existence of the 'outsider-:lrt', i.e. when the artist does not intend to be part of the art world, the :nt she/he creates can still be considered as art (after his/her death For instance).

Janet Wolff s work inspired by cultural sirudes contributes to this dscussion in her

examination of the work of art as an open entity, as the product of specific historical

conditions and social groups, which "therefore bear the imprint of the ideas, values, and

condtions of existence of those groups, and their representatives in particular artists"

(Wolff, 1993, p. 49). Wolff, in The Social Produ~tion o f f l r t defines the artwork in terms of the

diversity of social factors involved at every stage of the creation of the work of artt8. She

argues that "[wlhere social influences are indirect-, the work itself may not be affected, but

the conditions surrounding its production, distribution and reception will still be" (Wolff,

1993, p. 34). Similar in this case to Institutional Theory's approach, Wolffs argument does

not take into account the intrinsic properties of the artwork nor does it observe aesthetic

trends and tendencies. Her argument links the production of art to its immediate social

context. The French Impressionist art movement: in the 1860s was legitimized and 'entered'

the art history due to the conception and development of "the new dealer-critic system"

(Wolff, 1993, p. 34), which embraced then emerging middle-class collectors. Impressionist

painters would not find the acceptance they d d through the existing academic •’r:lmework

with its conservative ideology and its inability to accommodate the increased number of

painters who were then considered to be marginal. The new middle class, more adventurous

than traditional aristocrats, was interested in exploring new possibilities within the art

tradition. The art dealers and the critics succeeded in meeting the needs of the an buyers and

in legitimizing the works of art to this newly established audience (Wolff, 1993). Wolff

further argues that while the emergence of this dealer-critic system was possible as a result of

'8 Wolff extends her analysis of the social production of the artwork to three levels of inquiry: teclmology, which affects that production, the social framework, and economic factors. For the purpose of t h ~ s chapter I will litnit my discussion of Wolffs andysis of the social framework in which art is produced, circulated and consumed.

'an outmoded' field of artistic production, it ensured the discovery and success of one of the

greatest art movements in the Western history of art. Wolff s line of argument reinforces the

view that while the Impressionist's works of art may exist separately from their social

context, it may not have found its intended auhence nor would it be included in the history

of art. The field of cultural production ensures that only the artwork accepted within its

framework is delivered to the public for its distribution and consumption in the art market.

It can therefore be inferred that the agents in the field of cultural production are pritnardy

engaged in the struggle over the monopoly for cultural legitimization, an ultimate form of

power struggle over the distribution of the field's symbolic capital.

The art gallery: an agent of the field

Who are the agents that hold the most power in assigning the symbolic value and

meaning to the artwork? Traditionally, when an art dealer or a commercial art gallery accepts

the status of an artist and &/her craft, they ensure the symbolic validation of the artwork as

well as the promotion of the artist in the art world. Why does an art dealer or art gallery have

this status? Historically, the art gallery possesses the monumental aura of the timeless sacred

sanctuary and assumes the role of the transformer from the world of profane to the world of

the sublime; it claims to offer a metamorphosis through a deep spiritual change that was

accessible to the small elite who already had particular dispositions to respond to the work of

art and its consecrated nature. The art gallery h:ts been well depicted in Bourdieu's The Field

of Cultural Production:

. . . [the] holy places of art . . . [where] the chosen few come to nurture a faith of virtuosi while conformists and b o p s devotees come and perform a class ritual, old palaces of great hstoric homes to which the nineteenth cenirury

added imposing edifices, built often in the Greco-Roman style of civic sanctuaries, everything combines to indicate that the world of art is as contrary to the world of everyday life as the sacred is to profane (Bourd~eu & Johnson, 1993, p. 236).

Brian O'Doherty, in Inside the White Cnhe: The Ideology ofthe Gallery Space (1999),

discusses the art gallery and its highly controlled environment. "Untouched by time and

vanity, the art gallery and its contents, similarly to the medieval church, belong to posterity.

The roots of this status are rightly to be found "not in the history of art so much as the

history of religion.. ." (OtDoherty, 1999, p. 8). The earliest art galleries were found in

ancient Egyptian tomb chambers as well as in early Palaeolithic painted caves. As if

protecting the value of their contents, most cave art galleries are located nowhere near the

entrances and some requite hard effort to get to them. Offering an environment resistant to

time, the galleries are deliberately removed from (outside world. The early art gallery,

purposefully protected from the presence of time, change and decay, represented this 'ultra-

space' environment with access to metaphysical realms: " . . . [a] segregated space . . . a kind

of non-space, ultra space, or ideal space where the surrounding matrix of space-bme is

symbolically annulled" (OtDoherty, 1999, p. 8). In Egyptian culture, the purposes of the art

gallery evolved around the Pharaoh and his afterhfe, which depended on the assurance of

eternity. The gallery's primary function was to cater to the political aspirations of'a ruling

group and its efforts to maintain its hegemony and ensure its eternity. Thus, thls

constructed environment of the art gallery, where the effects of time are deliberately

disguised, imposes the perpetuity in the world outside of the art gallery too: "it is an attempt

to cast an appearance of eternality over the status quo in terms of social values and also, in

our modern instance, artistic values" (OtDoherty, 1 999, p.9).

Inaccessibility and the elimination of the awareness of the outside world are also

prominent characteristics of the contemporary exhibition space, which often architecturally

resembles a white cube. As a compensatory re:iction to the decline of religion, the white

cube emerged from the ideas of pure form and dominated the production and legitimization

of the aesthetics. It similarly maintains the unchanging ideals of artistic posterity.. aesthetic

beauty, the masterpiece formulated within the $orified limits and conditionings of a small,

highly educated elite.

"By suggesting eternal ratification of a certain sensibility, the whlte cube suggests the

eternal ratification of the claims of the caste or group sharing that sensibility" (O'Doherty,

1999, p. 9). The white cube represents a separate world and a restricted access to it. It is

conceptually designed to filter the world of artistic diversity by the symbolic exclusion of

some and the inclusion of others, promoting and maintaining its 'endurance and eternal

rightnessy. The pristine, and seemingly neutral white cube represents and maintains the

interests and ideals of a group who supports it: " it subsumes commerce and aesthetics, artist

and audience, ethics and expediency" (O'Doheqi, 1999, pp. 79-80). "The white cube's

ultimate meaning is this life-erasing transcendent:d ambition disguised and converted to

specific social purposes" (O'Doherty, 1999, p. 12).

Ultimately, a contemporary art gallery, with its monumental representations of

'transcendental modes of presence', produces the symbolic value and meaning for the work

of art and thus, imposes cultural authority in the field of cultural production. In order do

that, it must earn and maintain its symbolic power by conforming to the small elite,

influential agents within the field of cultural production including art historians, art critics,

academics at large, more established galleries, put,lic and private art institutions, etc. The

artist then, when entering the field of cultural production, must also gain a certain amount of

symbolic power to be recognized as a legtimate cultural producer w i t h the field of cultural

production. This is often only possible through the institutional acceptance of an artist by

the art galley. The symbolic struggle to obtain that acceptance and recoption i:j the issue at

stake: due to the restricted access to the field of cultural production and to generally

exercised symbolic exclusion by those who defme what is legtimate, the drstribution of ths

symbolic power is hghly uneven". Due to this dynamic and nature, the field of cultural

production is a site of symbolic struggle for the redistribution of ths symbolic power.

Artists, particularly in the recent history of art, produced a number of disruptive

gestures in their effort to negotiate the field's power dynamic, to address the symbolic

struggle, and to resist the limitations of the institutional framework for the arts. One of the

most famous examples of such disruptive gestures is Marcel Duchamp's "~ounta.in"~".

"Fountain" (1917) is a white porcelain urinal marked with the Duchamp's pseudonym 'R.

Mutt'. The artist submitted the artwork to the Society of Independent Artists' Exhbition in

New York, and, although Duchamp paid the fee .that was required to be a contributor to the

exhibition, his "Fountain" was rejected. The president of the board was predictably fierce

and by no definition could he define "Fountain" as the work of art and hence rejected it.

According to the discourse Duchamp's gesture has generated over time, "Founta:i" was an

attempt to test the boundaries of the institutional framework for the arts. Answering to the

institutional outcry, the 'defence' of "Fountain" was published in May 1917 in Tbc Blind Mun,

the proto-Dada art magazine, which argued that the sipficance of Duchamp's gesture was

'"n practice, an established art gallery is usually resistant to take risks on the new artists who are not at all recognized as legitimate cultural producers. To be able to produce the symbolic meaning and value for the work of art, the gallery must often exercise symbolic exclusion; it would simply loose its power if ~t legtimizes every debutant as a legitimate cultural producer. 20 Fountain is one of the ready-mades, a technical term coined by Duchamp: a set of various objects Duchamp obtained from commercial suppliers or from evelyday circulation and made them into artefacts by giving them titles (Hopkins, 2002).

in that he chose the object, took it from ordinary life and replaced its "useful significance . . .

[with] the new title and point of view - [which) created a new thought for that object" (from

The Blind Man in Warburton, 2003, p. 3). With -'I;ountain", Duchamp challenged the

institution of art by questioning what can and should be called art: by nominating an object

as a work of art, Duchamp invalidated the canonical idea of the aesthetically beautiful, hand

produced work of art. Ever since "Fountain" found its way out in it has generated

much literature in the theory and philosophy of art. In the 1960s, members of the

Conceptual Art movement elaborated on the Duchampian idea of nomination, and made it a

building block by manifesting a change in the nairure of art from mere aesthetic appearance

to conception. The disruptive impulse of the Conceptual Art movement and its attempts to

subvert the institutional framework of the arts is the subject for dscussion of Chapter 2.

Conclusion

I have established a theoretical framewor.k using Bourdieu in order to gain a better

understanding of the art world and the institutiorl of the arts. Bourdieu's theory of the field

of cultural production has been an instrumental element in my undertaking. It id.entifies the

relationship of the field of cultural production to the work of art, the artists, and the art

gallery. I have shown that the work of art is n collective social product and its meaning and

symbolic value are the product of the social structures and institutions within which it is

produced, circulated and distributed. We also dscovered that the definition of the work of

art and the artist is an issue at stake as it involves a great deal of symbolic power jn order to

formulate what is to be called "legtimate art". The field of cultural production then is

21 Fountain has never been officially displayed in public and the only evidence of its existence is its photograph in The Blind Man, an art publication that made a case for "R. Mutt's" defence (Hopkins, 2002, p. 253).

essentially "a site of struggle in which what is at stake is the power to impose the dominant

definition of the [artist] and therefore to d e h t the population of those entitled to take part

in the struggle to define the [artist]" (Bourdieu &.Johnson, 1993, p. 42). The ultunate

relationship among the agents within the field of cultural production is the strug-le over the

imposition of cultural authority, and the vision of the art world as a whole. Further, the

stakes of symbolic struggle in the cultural field and the embodiment of often unrecognizable

relations of power within and outside ofthe field determine a status quo, which I S sustained

and continuously reinforced by a symbolic power of a vast social apparatus, which includes

academia, art history, art critics and museums. trnportantly, the autonomy and the dynamic

of the field of cultural production is also determined by the external determinants which,

when they enter the field, change its structure and dynamic accordingly. As we will discover

in Chapter 2, the external determinants, if employed in resistance to the field's established

hegemony, can generate a new cultural logic and form social change.

CHAPTER TWO. CONCEPTIJAL ART:

THE RISE AND FALL OF DISRUPTIVE IMPULSE

Having determined the framework of the field of cultural production and its power

dynamic, this chapter investigates an historical instance where thts framework was

challenged, subverted and altered. To review, the essential relationshtp among the agents in

the field of cultural production is defined by the :struggle over the imposition of cultural

authority and over the ability and power to fonndate what is 'legitimate' art and artistic

practice. I would now like to investigate how the Conceptual Art Movement reflected this

struggle and served to challenge the boundaries of the institutions of the arts. The

emergence of Conceptual art represents a significant aesthetic movement in the Twentieth

Century, and provides a powerfid historical case study for an understanding of the theory of

the field of cultural production and its power dvnamic. Conceptual art "represents a

foundation on which may be devised a new challenge to 'the authority of the institutional

apparatus framing [art's] place in society"' (Corris, 2004a, p. 13). I will argue here that a

group of cultural producers in the 1960s and early 1970s, in attempting to challenge and test

the limits of the art world and its hegemony to co'ntrol the deftnition and meaning of the

artistic production, have developed a movement and a momentum that, due to its critical

engagement with the established cultural practices, radically subverted the institutional

framework of the arts.

I will proceed with applymg the theory of the field of cultural production to the

events of the mid to late 1960s and argue that it was philosophy that enabled Conceptual

artists to mobilize a strong movement that expanded the traditional outlook on

contemporary art and its function in the society. By critically engaging with philosophy and

employing it as an intellectual and art is~c resource, the artists were able to undermine the

established framework of the field of cultural production and to transform the actual

conditions of artistic and cultural practice. Further, the birth of the Conceptual art

movement was also the time when art was entering the world of commerce, leading to art's

marketing development and to the early evolu~on of its commodity status (Mamck, 2003). I

suggest here that the concurrent emergence of a new corporate patron and a collector, and

the rapid development of information technologjes, mass media and publicity became radical

catalysts for the structural shlfts in the field of cultural production. I discuss the emergence

of a new art dealer as a curator and a creator, changing ideology of the art gallery, its

institutional politics, and the effect all of these new phenomena had on cultural practice and

the field of cultural production at large. [ conclude this chapter discussing the significance

the Conceptual art movement had on the field of cultural production and why its radical and

disruptive impulse failed to produce long-term structural changes to the institutional

framework of the field of cultural production.

The emergence of Conceptual art: the catalyst for changing practices and attitudes

The precursor for the emergence of Collceptual art was European avant-garde art.

Its emergence in the early Twentieth Century was in part an attack on the status of art in

bourgeois societyz2. 'What is negated is not the earlier form of art but art as an institution

that is unassociated with the life praxis of men. . . . The avant-garde art directs itself to the

way art functions in society, a process that does as much to determine the effect that works

have as does the particular content" (Burger, 1992, p. 59). The Western history of art

attributes the emergence of Conceptual art and its early development to Marcel Duchamp

who introduced his famous 'ready-mades' in the early 1900s and who proclaimed his artistic

practice to be definitive of his artistic status. Duchamp7s work involved "an attempt to

escape the rule of taste by the use of mechanical techniques and the artistic recycling of

'ready-made7 objects" (Mattick, 2003, p. 124). 131s artistic practice was founded cln a

performative act rather than on the traditional 'work of art7: it involved taking objects from

ordinary life, such as the famous urinal from a public washroom titled as Fountain, t i thg

them, and then announcing them as the 'works of art7. By conferring the status of the work

of art on the chosen object, Duchamp "[rejected] the retinal in favour of the mental" and

made the audience rethink the aesthetic properties of the work of art in favour of its idea

and concept (Colpitt, 2004, p. 41). He introciucetl the power of artistic nomination, claiming

that since any object can be a work of art, art can no longer be subjected to aesthetic

judgements. The artist attacked the aesthetic definition of art and asserted its autonomy

from its aesthetic properties; he declared "the total absence of good or bad taste" (Mattick,

2003, p. 124). Although Duchamp left unanswered important questions of who is to be

called an artist and how, the significance of llis artistic gesture was in the radical i.dea that the

artistic decision-making is a complex social process. His conceptual definition of the work of

22 The term Av:int-Garde gained its significance in the early twentieth century. Around 1910 the term was used to describe the contemporary Cubist and Futurist artists as well as 'technically radical' art movements including Fauvism and Expressionism. They all 'threatened' conventional taste and prevailing aesthetic sensibilities and were critical of social and artistic cannons. The term was also widely associated with a radical political edge: in 1902 it was used by Lenin in his formulation of 'vanguard' party and subsequent conception of Bolshevism as a powerful political force (Wood, 2002).

art had enormous consequences for the field of cultural production, which were fully

realized only during the Western Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s.

The institutional conditions for the emer<gence of Conceptual art in the mid 1960s

were 'pre-determined' by the process of recepaon for Duchamp's works into the art

institution: "the positivization of the ready-made", a process which involved the direct

designation of the ready-made as 'art' after its preceding rejection (of the Fountain)"

(Osbome, 1999, p. 57)23. Conceptual art can be defined as a set of artistic practices critically

engaged with art, politics, media, mass culture and technology (Corns, 2004a). It was

conceived in the 1960s with the first generation of artists to attend university (Osbome,

1999, p. 50) who applied the critical potential of philosophy to the current state o f the field

of cultural production. The established ideology of the arts assumed social conservatism

where the institutional framework of the arts controlled the production of the symbolic

meaning of the work of art. It must be stressed that the art world in the 1960s aas largely

influenced by formalism, particularly its father :md avid defender Clement Greenberg

(Colpitt, 2004). Much art criticism in the U.S. was influenced by Greenbergys idea of artistic

judgement, which was limited to the artwork's visual appearance "at the expense of extra-

artistic references and literary content, which, in any case, were seldom pertinent to

prevailing styles of art" (Colpitt, 2004, p. 28). Fo~malism became the criteria for :la criticism

and for evaluation of 'good' and 'bad' art. Greenberg's writings on critical art theory

including his essay "Art and Culture" in 1962 became the embodiment and the pillar of the

art world's dominating ideology and power. He consequently became the worst enemy of

23 In Chapter 1 my conclusion explains in more detail the fate of Duchamp's "Fountain".

30

any progressive art of that decade, including Conceptual artz4. This limiting for the artist

ideology was not welcomed by the first generation of art students, and philosophy began to

function as the means to assert their artistic autonomy and seize control over the meaning of

their artistic production. In other words, Anglo-American analytical philosophy lprovided "a

radically different art-educational ideal,'' offering a new image of the artist as an intellectual

creator and critic, "who would aspire to pass judgement on the meaning of the work"

(Osbome, 1999, p. 51). Conceptual art represents: ". . .a radical attempt to realign two

hitherto independent domains of the cultural field: artistic production and philosophical

production" (Osbome, 1999, p. 50). It is thus argued that Conceptual art and its inception

must be looked at through the prism of philosophyz5 due to the "categorical extremism of

[artists'] positions (they pushed harder against the limits of the established notion of art) . . .

[and] because of the affinity of their artistic practices to the practice of criticism" (Osbome,

1999, p. 49). Art with its phdosophical investment and subsequent conceptual development

acquired a new task: having abandoned its aesthetic importance, it aspired to transcend its

own institutional context.

Conceptual art is not just another particular kind of art . . . [it is] a transformation in the relationship of sensuousness to conceptuality w i t h the ontology of the artwork whch challenges its definition as the object of a specifically 'aesthetic' (that is non-'conceptual') or quintessentially 'visual' experience. Conceptual art was an attxk on the art object as the site of a look (Osbome, 1999, p. 48).

The emergence of an artist as a sole creator of the meaning for hs/her aitistic

production led to an erosion between the definitions of the artist and art critic and to an

expansion of artistic practice at large. In particular, the art-critical discourse refocused on the

?' 'Ths antagonism was well expressed by the early Conceptual artists. For example, John Latham publicly destroyed a copy of Greenberg's "Art and Culture" by chewing its pages (Colpitt, 2004). 25 Osbome defines philosophy here as "pure conceptuality, pure thought, pure reason" (Osbome, 1999, p. 47).

ontological questions about the essential nature and 'legitimate' form of artworks. Artists,

enthusiastically engaging in such dxourse, used its critical potential as a new productive

resource for their artistic practice and as a means of gaining and maintaining control over the

fate and meaning of their work. In other words, the emerging art-critical discourse, which

incorporated both artistic and phdosophical productions, allowed Conceptual anists to

directly reassign the cultural authority from the institutional framework of the field of

cultural production to the cultural producers themselves. If Bourdieu's theory of the field is

applied to examine the Conceptual art movement, it can be suggested that the artists

attempted to alter the positions within the field of cultural production by producing the

symbolic meaning for their own work with their own means of artistic practice. Sigmficantly,

the introduction of philosophy into the field of cultural production allowed Conceptual

artists, with their novel practices of art production, to challenge the status quo in the art

world, whlch was defined by the established institutional hierarchies and economies of value

and meaning.

What was the significance of phdosophy for Conceptual art and the field of cultural

production? ' f i e works of Sol Le Witt, Joseph Kosuth and the British group Art &

Language illustrate the connection between phdosophy and Conceptual art. These works

originated in the mid 1960s to early 1970s, and demonstrate how philosophy served these

artists and the entire Conceptual Art movement, reflecting how the artistic movement

transcended institutional contexts by pushing the boundaries of cultural production (Mattick,

2003).

Sol LeWitt's 1967 essay "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art" marks the beginning of

Conceptual art as a movement. LeWitt's essay is:

a disullation of the immanent logic of an object-producing, though not object-based, practice which evolved, primarily, through the exploration of the effects of self-regulating se~ies and systems of rules for decision-making about the production of objects out of preformed materials (Osborne, 1999, p. 52).

LeWitt insisted that any idea, visually realized or not, can qualify as a work of art

where its phvsical properties are not essential, they are simply optional. 'This phdosophical

investment has immense consequences for the field of cultural production, particularly the

institutional context of artistic production. LeWitt understood the work of art 2:s "a

conductor from the artist's mind to the viewer's" (LeWitt in Osborne, 1999, p. 54). LeWitt

disregarded the role of the institution to facilitate the communication between the artist's

mind and the viewer's. He implied that the institution is not necessary and even derogatory

for artistic practice. Importantly, LeWitt7s "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art" prepared the

discursive platform for another Conceptual art pioneer, Joseph Kosuth.

Joseph Kosuth was a Conceptual artist active in the mid-1960's who famously

problematized the field of artistic practice and cultural production and whose Conceptual

artistic practice focused on the idea that art is definitively philosophical. Kosuth7s influential

"Art After Philosophy" was first published in 1969, and proclaimed art as an analytic

proposition, where the work of art is the work of' art and asserted "that Conceptual art

originated as a reaction to the subjective aesthetics and general mindlessness of formalist art

and criticism" (Colpitt, 2004, pp. 28-29). In his writing, Kosuth facihtated a mental shift

from "the wide eyed surprise of 'This is art?' to a new way of claiming 'This is art "'

(Osborne, 1999, p. 57). Kosuth was inspired by the spirit of anti-establishment and, by the

late 1960s he started w o r h g in 'alternative7 media rather than "the mherently tainted,

corrupted ones of the old masters" (Alberro, 200.3, p. 29). His methods involved "the black

and white photographic blow-up of a dictionan entry for the word 'water"' (Alberro, 2003,

p. 29)': While offering significant art historical references, Kosuth emphasized the

formalized linguistic information by using the definition of random words taken from a

dictionary to stress the irrelevance of the content of his work2'. Kosuth instead insisted that

his work was about an idea and context (Alberco, 2003).

Kosuth argued that artists are not only sole creators of the artwork: they are also

creators of its symbolic status and meaning. Kosuth attempted to undermine the distinction

between the work of art and the artist's critical discourse, which resulted in the work of art

becoming 'the product of the artist's 'total signifj~ing activity"' (Osbome, 1999, p. 60). He

used the authority of philosophy to ascertain this right and power to creation. T'roclaiming

an artist as self-curator, Kosuth initiated an important institutional discourse on who is the

artist and who decides to designate the artist's status, clearly questioning the legitimizing

apparatus of the art world. His invaluable contribution to the field of cultural production

cannot be underestimated: Kosuth, through his generous investment in philosophy,

introduced 'the death of the critic' at the time wh.en Greenberg's formalist evalua.tive

judgment was at its peak. He thus pioneered the radical anti-criteria of judgement capable of

adequately addressing this new art movement. The acquired level of artistic autonomy due to

growing irrelevance of the critic offered a truly revolutionary sense of power and control

over the artistic production, a novelty that artists had never enjoyed before. Kosuth's artistic

practice, although criticized for being reactionary and not adequately developed, became a

'neo-avant-garde strategy' to displace the hegemony of Greenberg's "master narrative and

allowed for the artists to assume new authority and no longer feel beholden to the old

26 Kosuth exhibited this piece at the Museum of Normal Ar t , which was previously called the Lar~nis Gallery (Alberro, 2003).

The art historical reference in his Art as Idea aJ Idea (1 967) is directed to the white-black Kawarx's "date paintings," along with its "directness, colour scheme, [and] incorporation of writing into the field of painting" (Alberro, 2003, p. 30).

paradigm" (Stimson, 2004, p. 289). In other words, the artists no longer had to be "the

pawns in the legitimization of ideals that they (lid not believe in" (Stimson, 2004, p. 289).

Similarly to LeWitt, Kosuth utilized philosophy ;is a productive artistic resource. The artistic

practice for both involved the use of language, a:nalytic phdosophy, and critical cliscourse,

which enabled them to demonstrate the radical insufficiency of the aesthetics as the

meaning-producing criteria of the artistic practic~e. It can be thus suggested that LeWitt's

and Kosuth's phdosophical investments became critical supplements that supported

Conceptual art's claim to legitimization.

Kosuth7s use of philosophy offered radical potential for the early Conceptualists to

operate on a different, seemingly more :iutonomous plane. However, his own aspirations to

break away from the institutional frameworks of the art sphere resulted in the urgent

necessity to strategically utilize the mass media and publicity to establish his artistic status,

which Kosuth had to work on from scratch. He did so boldly and successfully by utilizing

the emergmg channels of mass medla and publicity. Kosuth skilfully employed public

relations and self-promotion: he understood the -value and necessity of mobhing the mass

media and took full advantage of it. "Accordingly, [Kosuth] was often found at the 'right7

places, promoting his career and cultivating 'socid capital,' . . . 'a capital of social

connections' . . . that is often . . . [necess:q] in winning and keeping the confidence of hlgh

society, and with it a clientele," and that may bc &awn on to make an artistic career"

(Alberro, 2003, p. 27)28. By utilizing publicity to promote his image as an artist, Kosuth

established hunself as a crucial figure in offering the vernacular for a discourse in the art

world. He defined the critical terms that informed and interpreted his artwork by refusing

2s Alberro uses Bourdieu to support his arguments and historical account on Kosuth: the artist h:~s understood the importance of social or symbolic capital and its value and 'the rate of exchange' in the field of cultural production.

the tra&tion:il &vision of labour between the critic and the artist and by writing his own art

criticism for mass me&a publications (Alberro. 2.003). Arthur R. Rose was Kosuth's

pseudonym, which allowed hlrn to write about the art of like-minded artists and to

continuously redefine the Conceptual art movement and its terms. This contributed

positively to the meaning of his own work and artistic practice; he strategically treated

publicity as a "total sigrufymg activity" (Alberro, 2003, p. 42), which resulted in the collapse

of boundaries between art and art criticism as well as in a dramatic increase in the art work's

additional value and desirability. Alberrc) argues that Kosuth's strategies as an artist and art

critic were s d a r to that of advertising: "[allong with promoting the product, pis] campaign

included rich overtones about the career, creativity, future - in short, the image -- of the

artist" (Alberro, 2003, p. 42).

Aspiring to be in charge of h s own career, Kosuth gained attention from leading art

critics, collectors and mass media publications mcluding Time and Newsweek. He personified

a new type of 'professional' and career oriented artist who carefully yet aggressively

cultivated h s image as an artist well beyond the art world. For instance, Kosuth organized a

well-publicised lecture series with the participation of influential Conceptualists including

Donald Judd, Ad Reinhardt, Robert Smithson, Sol LeWitt, and Dan Graham (Alberro,

2003). Kosuth also opened the Lannis Gallery o n no budget together with his fellow artists

Christine Kozlov and Lannis Spencer to organize radical art shows and to capitalize on the

Conceptual art movement at large. He was a revolutionary figure in the art world as he did

something that no artists did before: he slulfully assumed the roles of an artist, critic, curator

and gallery owner, and he made sure the world knew his name. To speak in Bourdieu's

terms, Kosuth took charge of obtaining large amounts of symbolic capital by the means of

me&a and publicity. He utilized the emerging technologies and resulting power of publicity

in hls advantage to acquire the currency of the art world (i.e. the recognition, the prestige

and the validation of his artistic practice), currtmcy that was not previously avahble to the

artist's dsposal. Kosuth subverted the field of cultural production by simply disregarding the

art world's traditional channels for an established formula of the distribution of ,jymbolic

capital.

The >4rt & Language movement: was influential for the development of Conceptual

art practices in the early 1970s and included artists such as Karl Beveridge, Jd Breakstone,

Ian Burn, Corole Cond;, Preston Heller, Michael Krugman, Andrew Menard, Philip

PiLkington, Dave Rushton, and Paul woodz9. Th.e group realized that the nature of the

artwork had become increasingly dependent on the framework of supporting institutions

and aspired to subvert the traditional notion of professional competence in art. The group

saw Conceptual art practices as a rebellion against the institutional framework ofthe arts and

saw the discipline of philosophy as a radxal potential and a possibdity for a new kmd of art;

they all employed language and philosophical irlquiry as main resource for artistic practice

(Corris, 2004a). Further, if Kosuth thought artistic practice meant a set of fixed

philosophical positions, Art and Language proposed an inquiry into what these positions

were. The members of Art and Language aspired to explore a possibility of making art

through a method of a theoretical analysis: "they were mesmerized by the formal possibilities

of various systems of meaning, in which the ratlical openness of purely logical possibdity

appears to have functioned as a utopian metaphor for the artistic and the social alike"

(Osbome, 1999, p. 63). It has been argued that th~e group's pursuit of philosophy as a

method for a new kind of art placed these artist-s closer to the practitioners of a

2Qese members of Art and Language all eventually abandoned the artistic field in favour of political and/or academic fields. Currently, Art and Language is comprised (of Michael Baldwin and Me1 Ramsden (Cords, 2004a).

phrlosophical field. Yet, they were still clistarlt j'rom the field of phrlosophy in so far as their

written work as a form of art was "insulating them from the legitimating (and delegitimating)

mechanisms of the philosophical field itself' (Osborne, 1999, p. 63). The tensions between

the philosophical, social, and artistic dunension were prevalent within Art & Language and

resulted in "critical aggression and defensive self-parody" (Osborne, 1999, p. 64). It further

marked the culmination and the demise of Conceptualism: "the fantasy of the resolution of

the constitutive ambiguity of philosophv7s double coding" (Osborne, 1999, p. 64).

It has been argued that few conceptual artists could renegotiate their artistic status

outside of the established art world and its channels of circulation and distribution. "For

most Conceptual artists, the option seemed to be limited to attempts to colonize the existing

cultural spaces or to take seriously their own rhetoric and proceed to carve out their own

cultural spaces, most likely in the margins of established systems" (Corris, 2004b, p. 102).

The most successful strategies resulted in such cultural spaces as artist-run galleries,

collectives, and art publications produced and disseminated by artists. Nevertheless, early

Conceptual art put in question certain tacit relationshps among the various agents within the

field of cultural production. In particular, the rt:lationships between the artists and the

institutionalized framework were significantly prablematized. Conceptual artists rethought

their relationshp with the institution of the art world and renegotiated their position with

media, art galleries and the collectors. The artisrs attempted to structurally alter the position

in the field of cultural production by a1tt:ring their own role in the production of artwork.

The physical and symbolic properties of art were now under the artist's control, not art

galleries, art critics or public art institutions. Duchamp, and later LeWitt, Kosuth and Art &

Language reconfigured the sipficance and the function of the work of art, where the idea

behind the work, the art-critical discourse and even a theoretical analysis all became a new

form of artistic practice and formed a new cultural logc in the Geld of cultural production.

The world outside of art: Themes and issues during the emergence of Conceptual art

and their effect on the field of cultural production.

The importance of Sol LeWitt, Joseph Klosuth and Art & Language should not be

underestimated and, although, criticized as radically reactionary, their novel practices set the

platform for further evolution for an artist as a creator of the artwork and its symbolic

meaning and value. However, the momentum that Conceptual art gained in the late 1960s

and early 1970s did not take place in isolation and should also be attributed to the larger

social and cultural phenomena. It can be argued that if the process of art production and its

symbolic meaning was altered due to the introduction of phdosophy in the field of cultural

production, however, it was information technology along with publicity and mass media

and the emergence of an educated middle class that altered art's circulation, distribution,

consumption and thus the dynamic of the field as a whole.

The sudden economic growth in the mid 1960s offered positive speculations for the

economy, including the art market. This led to the infusion of corporate h d s and the

emergence of a new type of 'corporate' collector, which became one of the most significant

factors in the art world. Corporate collectors preferred the investment potential in

contemporary- artwork to more established mas1:erpieces. "Art was being purchased at record

rates, and a new type of patronage was emerging that differed dramatically from the elite

circles that previously dominated the art market.. ." (Alberro, 2003, p. 7). Corporxte

collectors "imaped new, innovative art as a sylnbolic ally in the pursuit of

entrepreneurship, a partner in their own stniggle to revitalize business and the consumer

order generally" (Alberro, 2003, p. 13). By supporting new art trends, predomimntly

inclulng Conceptual art, a corporate art patron was able to create a new positive business

image and a sign of commitment to fresh ideas. By the late 1960s art was already part of the

every day work life of middle class managerial social groups and allowed the continuous flow

of corporate funds into the field of cultural production by developing a new type of art

patronage. The field of cultural producaon mas faced with the rise of a new corporate art

collector and consequently a new art dealer who took full advantage of media, publicity and

the availability of corporate capital.

Art, with its conceptual development was no longer a strategy of escapism of the

privileged; it was quickly becoming a part of thc: every day life of the emerging corporate

class, with art's presence in offices and buildings. Collecting art was becoming an exciting,

adventurous and risk-taking business, which was fuelled with unprecedented arts publicity

and media coverage. Consumer publications such as Vanig Fair announced "the art world as

an institution had become the centre of attention and the artist a supplier of commodities in

an exchange of fashionable goods" (Alberro, 2003, p. 7). Importantly, the monetary gain

that the investment into contemporary art could bring was not the only incentive for a new

corporate patron. The fame and prestige that this type of patronage could allow was

unprecedented. It was the beginning of '.'the new phase of image-centered capitahm"

(Alberro, 2003, p. 7) and the contemporary art scene was in the centre of it all. The media

gave purchasers and the artists the same amount of attention. Art now proliferated in

workspaces, private collections as well as museums and art galleries, phenomena that made

the legtimization of art even less dependable on the opinions of established art c~itics and

academics. By 1973 the exhibition of Corlceptual art became a common practice for galleries

and museums; it dominated the 1971 Paris IJiennial, the Guggenheim International (NY,

1971) and even Documenta V (1972). Concepiual art was written about in Ari$oolm, Studio

Intemutionul, D0mm.r and Art Intemutional. By the mid 1970s it was identified as a global

practice and, was prominently featured in Wesrern Europe, North America, South America,

Eastern Europe and Australia (Green, 2004). 'I3e combination of conceptual dcvelopment

in the arts, corporate cotlectors and corporate capital together with the hungry publicity and

mass media capabilities created a platform (although short lived) upon which the artist for

the first time enjoyed control over the creation of the symbolic meaning and value of the art

work he/she created, his/her recoption and prestige and legtirnization of the a.rt work

independently of established institutional framework of the arts. Sipficantly, the emergence

of new information technologies allowed comm~mication of the Conceptual art movement

around the world as a new global art practice.

As a result of this soaring popularity, the idea of the "artist" and "art gallery" faced

significant changes. As previously mentioned, rhe emerging Conceptual artists in the mid to

late 196Os, with the exploration of novel practices and their increasing aspiration to be in

charge of their own destinies and their s11bsequen.t careers were the precursor to hat change.

This shlft in the artists' consciousness coincided with larger social developments, including

the evolution of a middle class who now obtained university degrees and were increasingly

becoming part of the multinational corporate world. There was a strong emergence of a

"new kind of society . . . variously described as post-industrial, information and consumer

society.. ." (Alberro, 2003, p. 2). Further, as Alberro suggests, it was "the market., among

other thmgs, by novel modes of communication and distribution of information, new types

of consumption . . . and the proliferation of advertising and the media" that made dramatic

changes in the field of cultural production. 'Infonnadzation' in particular, a phenomenon

that described the advanced 'image' capitalism in the 1960s and "Conceptualism's unusual

formal features and mode of circulation in marly ways utilize and enact the deeper logic of

informatization" (Alberro, 2003, p. 3). This is an important theme that my thesis will

elaborate on later in the chapter as well as in Chapter 3.

These developments of the mid to late l!)6O7s in the field of cultural production

marked a distinct deviation from highly academic art criticism; the symbolic validity of the

work of art now relied more on the role of the curators, art dealers and artists themselves,

"whose advise often emphasized the exchange value of works of art alongside their aesthetic

value" (Alberco, 2003, p. 8). The new generation of collectors began to purchase the art

works prior to their legitirnization by museums, established art critics and the institutional

framework of the arts at large, escalating artists' recognition in the art world and improving

their financial success. This "fundamental reconception of patronage" (Alberro, 2003, p. 6)

changed the dynamic and structure of the field of cultural production. To speak In

Bourdieu7s terms, the pre-existing formula of the distribution of symbolic capital, i.e. the

artist's recognition, prestlge and the symbolic meaning and value of their artistic practice,

was dramatically subverted and put in the hands of a new generation of artists, art dealers,

curators, and young adventurous corporate collectors. Their roles were becoming

interrelated, and their previously strictly defrnecl roles were bepning to blur. The symbolic

value and meaning of the artwork and the validation and recognition of the artist were now

determined by popularity and rnarketabllity hyped with the help of publicity and mass media.

This provides a classic example of how the field of cultural production reacted to the

emergence of the larger social phenomena: the tension between the artists and their

institutional cage of the art world, defined by the formalists' ideals and judgements, erupted

in the radical subversion of the art world's earlier established power to validate 'legitimate7

art. It dramatically empowered the artists to gain legitimacy on their own terms without the

approval the traditional framework of the art institution.

The new art dealer and the symptoms of globalism

To dustrate these radical developments takmg place in the field of cultural

production during the Conceptual art movement., it is timely to mention New York based

conceptual art dealer, curator and entrepreneur Seth Siegelaub. During his active career

from 1964 to 197 1, Siegelaub skilfully utilized publicity and corporate patronage, organized

highly influential art exhibitions and plaved an mportant role in the transformation of art

exhibition production practices. Siegelaub questioned the traditional boundaries and

frameworks of the field of cultural production 2nd was at the forefront of structural shifts

that were takmg place in the art world starting from the mid 1960s. Before his departure

from the art world in 1971, Siegelaub sipficantbi transformed the art exhibition concept

and the processes of distribution, circulation and consumption of the work of art and thus

offered a powerful alternative to the field of cultural production, its dynamic and structure.

Siegelaub mastered the commercial marketing of conceptual art work, capitahzing on

"the relationship between the hghly innovative e:xhlbition and distribution practices he

developed in the late 1960s and the ongoing aesthetic dialogue in the work of the artists

associated with him during h s period" (:Alberro, 2003, pp. 4-5)30. A more detailed

examination of h s methods sheds light on the changing status of the artist and the new

30 Among others, Siegelaub represented Joseph Kosuth, Robert Barry, Lawrence Weiner, Dougla: Huebler, and Ian Wilson, influential Conceptual artists of the 1960s

cultural logic that these novel methods of distribution, circulation and consumpiion of the

work of art introduced to the field of cultural production.

Siegelaub's success can be largely attributed to his strateges of publicity. Often

organizing shows out of h s apartment and maintaining an invitation only policy., he was

meticulously attentive to the image of the artists, their identities, and ways to publicize his art

exhibitions. Siegelaub

would host a soiree, or salon, at his apartment, to which he would invite a select group of collectors, critics, and museum curators to mingle with the artists he represented. This tactful organization of an exclusive "inner circle" was the way Siegelaub now did business and showcased h s artists7 work (Alberro, 2003, p. 120).

That was his way of obtaining critical social capital for the development of a

successful career in the art world. He developed a well-constructed publicity strategy by

developing a public relations network and tactics to promote the image and the idea behind

that image. The social capital that this network provided allowed Siegelaub to use the new

growing source of corporate patronage to his advantage. He convinced his corporate

entrepreneurs that the support of the arts would llegitimize and ultimately increase their

economic and social power. He argued that "increased sales would follow from the type of

image, prestige, and legitimacy that a corporate patron would gain through collecting [and

supporting] arts" (Alberro, 2003, p. 14). Bridging corporate and art fields together, Siegelaub

introduced the simultaneous and mutually beneficial exchange of cultural and corporate

capital to the corporate world and the art world respectively, which allowed the corporate

patron to create an image of benevolence, social progressiveness and legitimacy, and

eventually translate this cultural capital into greater economic capital. This mutual exchange

and consequent influx of corporate money into the sphere of the arts, allowed Siegelaub to

transform an art gallery into a progressive modern business institution.

Importantly, Siegelaub and the :mists he represented a shared strong resentment

toward the institutional hierarchy of the art world, its established conventions and its

inherent constricted judgement. T h s hostility in part resulted in their abolition of art

criticism as a main vehicle for cultural legitirnization; it also resulted in rethinking the

architectural setting for artistic production and distribution that was traditionally realized

strictly in terms of the art gallery setting. In turn, Siegelaub's innovative and aggressive

strategies of uthzing publicity and his bold deviation from traditional structures ,of the art

world allowed for a gradual expansion of artistic expression. In particular, ths expansion was

expressed in the abolition of the traditional art gallery and the distribution of art and

dmemination of art ideas through catalogue and symposia.

Siegelaub operated his own art gallery, the Seth Siegelaub Contemporary Art Gallery,

from 1964 to 1966 and then continued his career as an art dealer by organizing highly

influential art exhbitions out of h s apartment in New york7'. The economic growth deeply

affected the field of cultural production and resulted in an influx of corporate capital in the

art world, which led to its unprecedented growth with an increasing number of art galleries

and dealers. Faced with fierce competition, Siegelaub was not able to cover the gallery's

overhead. He and his artists were inevitably confronted with the possibility of "abandoning

the institution of the gallery or museum with all of its restrictions in favour of a supposedly

In the early 1968 Siegelaub organized two influential shows with the artists including Andre, Barry and Weiner. The first one took place in a highly controlled environment of the Laura Knott Gallery and the second at Windham College which, due to lack of actual gallery space, produced only temporal outdoor and site specific works. This, as Siegelaub, enxlsioned, broke and jubverted the traditional framework of art exhibition practices. The "January 5-31, 1969" group exhibioon was famous in that it provided art criticism of the artists included in the show: Kosuth, Barry, Weiner, Huebler among others (Alberro, 2003).

uninhibited, unrestricted, open, external space where none of these lirmtations apply"

(Alberro, 2003, p. 24). Restrictions here imply the formula of cultural legitimacy, which lies

at the heart of the symbolic struggle in the field of cultural production. Siegelaub proved that

in the 1960s an artist does not have to belong to an art gallery to have a successful career and

to be culturaUy legitimate. Siegelaub's site of exhbition became 'ephemeral', and he broke

down the idea of an art gallery: ". . . [wlhat is [an art gallery's] function? Its primary function

is that it's a place for artists to put their work out. But it breaks down to many aspects. . . .

There's space, there's money, there's exposure or publicity. And I've just, in a sense,

elimmated space. My gallery is the world now" (Siegelaub in Alberro, 2003p. 153). Siegelaub

predicted a phenomenon that would be realized only in early 2000's: a nomadic virtual art

gallery that literally transcends the dimensions of time and space.

The emerging figure of the curat-or and a creator of the artwork was strorigly

facilitated by Seth Siegelaub who was then an art dealer as well as an influential exhbition

organizer3'. Siegelaub explored and challenged the boundaries of the institutional framework

of the art world by denying the traditional format of an art exhibition and by introducing the

catalogue as a new form of art dissemination. '"This phenomenon would expand with the

international art world over the next two decades, part of the growing comrnerci:d and

institutional activity" (Altshuler, 1994, p. 236). As previously noted, the mode of

presentation for Conceptual art became increasingly hguistic and ideas about the work of

art were increasingly more important than their realization. The catalogue introduced by

Siegelaub connected verbal means and documentation with the definition of exhbition:

"The nature of Conceptual art allowed Seth Sie;,relaub to make the catalogue into a new kind

32 These efforts were made first by the artists themselves including "the Early Dada, Spring of Earnst, Baargeld, Duchamp's 1938 Paris installation, . . . transformations ol'the galerie Iris Clert by Klein and by Arrnan, Oldenburg store" (Altshuler, 1994, p. 236).

of exhibition space" (Altshuler, 1994, p. 238). Siegelaub was able to effectively express his

antiestablishment dispositions through the lack of gallery space and abhty to have a 'show7

by distributing a catalogue of the documented artwork. For instance, the show "Douglas

Huebler: November 1968" was executed solely in a form of a catalogue. By utilizing the

concept of a catalogue in his exhibition, he subverted the 'normal' relationship among the art

exhbition, the catalogue and their functions. The physical artworks were now purely

illustrative and included in the catalogue, emphasizing the insignificance and redundancy of

the physical realization of the artwork since it mas expressed purely through language and

ideas. Through the implementation of :L catalogue as a form of exhibition, Siegelaub

harnessed a new way of viewership and experience by producing catalogues where

documentation became an integral part of the artwork: "whoever possessed the journal [for

the Huebler show] had a stake in the artist's production" (Alberro, 2003, p. 153). By

developing alternative and radically new forms of distribution systems and utilizing the

infrastructure of publicity, Siegelaub "made an urdmited viewership a real possibility7'; it was

a new condtion, which made art "unprecedently uncircumscribed and mobile", and whch

radically subverted the traditional structures including the art gallery and its processes of

hierarchization through the inclusion in and exclusion from cultural legitimacy (Alberro,

2003, p. 153).

The catalogue, as an artistic site, served to establish and communicate the work of art

to the rest of world as part of the artwork. By publicizing and distributing his artists7 works

in the catalogue, Siegelaub emphasized the role of information in artistic practice and

arguably commenced the process of geographical (although purely artistic) decentralization.

T h s was aided by the formal properties of Conceptual art, where ideas, context and

information were an essential element of' its production: "the deterritorializing properties of

conceptual art liberated it not only from traditional institutional sites of display, but also

from geographical centers" (Alberro, 2003, p. L 53).

Further, Siegelaub's most innovative methods of art distribution and circ:ulation

involved the organization of symposia, as public events, simultaneously taking pl!ace with the

exhlbitions he organized. On June 17, 1969 he arranged for his artists to communicate with

each other and the audience over a telephone connecting New York, Ottawa and

Vancouver. "This multicontext electronic con\-ersation was transmitted to an assembled

audience over the public address system in the SFU Theatre" (Alberro, 2003, p. 156).

Following artists' exchange, the audience was invited to participate in the discussion with the

artists and to take part in the artistic process.

It can be argued that Siegelaub was a forerunner of the idea that would come to

realization only in the late 20th century: globalized art world. With his ideals for

decentralization, deterritorialization, and a more inclusive art world, Siegelaub r e c o p e d the

early symptoms of advanced globalization that the social and economic systems were

begmning to manifest in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The methods that Siegelaub used to

dstribute the works of art paralleled the "transformations in the dissemination of

information brought about by contemporary globalization" (Alberro, 2003, p. 159). It is

important to note that Siegelaub's ideal of decentralization and detemtorialization via

information shared close affinity with the emerging communication discourse initiated by

Marshall Mchhan, who pioneered with enthusiasm the ultimate importance "of the

medium of communication over the contents of media messages, encapsulated in his

formula 'the medium is the message', transferred meaning onto the medum itself through

the technological structure" (Alberro, 2003, p. 154).

Siegelaub's view of the world as hls gallery has undeniable parallels with the larger

social phenomena at the time. In particular, the processes of cybernetic and informational

revolutions in the economic field in the 1960s and 1970s mechanized technologes of

communicaaon which resulted in capital and inExmation that could be transferred

instantaneously around the globe and marked :I new stage of globalization. The time-space

compression, whlch this new stage of globalization allowed, also translated into cultural

'compression' (Alberro, 2003).

Siegelaub took advantage of the time space compression idea as part of the larger

social phenomenon of globahation to break away from the art gallery as an institution

where artists traditionally exhibited their art. Evidently, Conceptual artists' methods of art

production and Siegelaub's methods of art disttibution were developing along wi.th the

Western processes of globalization, which in tepted the field of cultural production "into

advanced capitalism's generalized commo&ty system" (Alberro, 2003, p. 154). He was a

pioneer of cultural globalization, although initially i h s fate was not as clearly apparent. It was

around this time when Siegelaub's perception of the art world and his role in it started to

change. Siegelaub became interested in communication processes between the artist and the

rest of the world independently of the artists' geographical location. He was a facilitator of a

change in the field of cultural production, allowing artists on their own behalf to

communicate, advocate and legtimize their art artd artistic practice on a global scale.

At the heart of Siegelaub's ideas and methods was the complex relationship between

the art world and market and his aspirations for subverting the hierarchical relation of the

artist to the field of cultural production. His new methods of exhibiting art, whlch

undeniably were born out of Conceptual artistic practice, "not only delunited the size of the

audience, but also shifted the emphasis from objects to ideas" (Alberro, 2003, p. 155).

Siegelaub was an effective facilitator in his artists' struggles to eliminate the object of art or

to dematerialize it, which meant "to become awa~re of that idea was to posses it" (Alberro,

2003, p. 155). Importantly, in his efforts to dematerialize the work of art and abandon the

trahtional institutional framework for the expansion of artistic production and distribution

of the work of art, he did achieve a broader inclusion of audience in the field of cultural

p rod~c t ion~~ . However, although Siegehiub and his artists, with their novel modes of

production of the work of art, attempted to reach their autonomy in regard to the processes

of cultural legitimization and abandon a traditional white cube and the traditional art

criticism, their efforts resulted in comodification of the work of art and its inclusion into the

world of corporate finance, the rules of publiciry and mass media. Abandoning the

institutional framework of the art world they followed the "social structure of advanced

capitalism" where the commohty form simply cannot be abolished: "the basic capitalist

economic structure remained in place and govern.ed how the art market did business"

(Alberro, 2003, p. 157). Siegelaub's aspiratioris for the cultural autonomy and the possibhty

of artist's exclusive monopoly over cultural legitirnization of their work were unsustainable

as the art market already decided in the early 1970s on the fate of the artists with commercial

success or failure. The fate of artistic creation was increasingly depending on the market

structures.

33 Although Siegehub aspired the abolition of the traditional framework of art gallery, he still respected the impact of an art show organized in a traditional art galleq space. In February 1968 he arranged a show with Andre, Barry and Weiner at Bradford Junior College in Massachusetts bringing together the most radical of artists to this conservative New England academic insriturion (Altshuler, 1994).

The end of Conceptual era

While Conceptual art provoked a radical change to the field of art production, the

movement was also subject to criticism. One such criticism suggests that although

Conceptual art embodled the ideals of the 1960s counterculture and subverted the status

quo, it still "reside[d] . . . at the margins of the dominant culture" (Corris, 2004c, p. 269).

While Conceptual art initially called for changes in social relations of art production,

circulation and distribution and suggested a new formulation of artistic agency, ii- was "an

intellectual fetish that tore ideas from their soclal context and did much to further mystify

the role and nature of the art object in the marketplace" (Stimson, 2004, p. 269). It is argued

that Conceptual art was a result of financial cutbacks to the galleries and museums, whlch

resulted in the need for a cheaper product. An attempt on part of Conceptualists to reduce

the work of art to an idea and to avoid the process of its symbolic production by the

institution of art, namely from the art gallery, a m founded "on naive ass~mptioc~s about the

radlcal potential for avant-garde autonomy". Conceptual art became "limited to the freedom

[of artists] to define art for themselves" (Stimson, 2004, p. 288).

Further, the infusion of corporate capital was a problematic factor for the new art

and the effort for the subversion of traditional cultural practices. The 1969 exhibition

"When Attitudes Become Form" in Berlin was funded by Phdip Moms Europe (Altshuler,

1994). The only commonality that the art world and the exhibition shared with the corporate

form was 'innovation'. The support of experimental art was an essential part of the

company's commercial agenda. However, if arasts believed they were subverting the

traditional forms of the art world by the forces of corporate capital, the power of' the art

world remained intact: the works that were meant to be non-commercial "soon would be

sold and resold in a growing international [art] 1n:irket7' (Altshuler, 1994, pp. 254-255). It can

be argued that there is ultimately "no form of :a t that cannot be absorbed by a voracious art

market" (Meyer, 1973, p. 131). If art is considered outside the field of cultural production

(the art which completely subverts the practices of the field), it must be placed outside of a

gallery and museum business; it cannot be collected and bought. "[C]onceptual art has been

successfully a s s d a t e d by the international art market in the forms of books, statements,

photos, and Xeroxed and teletyped diagrams" (?[eyer, 1973, p. 131). "In a state of decadence

. . . the establishment [of the field of cultural production] appears quite eager to catch up

with the rebellious expression and to purchase the latest slap" (Meyer, 1973, p. 130).

"Objects become collector's items and Anti-Art js victimized by the acquisition compulsion"

(Meyer, 1973, p. 133). The oppositional impulse of the 1960's artists over the next two

decades was largely embraced and consumed by 'commercial and institutional expansion'.

Assimilation of the novel artistic practices into the mainstream becomes "an essential

condition for the perpetuation of an avant-garde" (Altshuler, 1994 p. 255). This in fact soon

became the norm: "ply the eighties large numbers of exhibitions would be sold out before

they opened, their contents long known by many" (Altshuler, 1994, p. 255). Even the most

oppositional practices and impulses could not resist the system of the global image

capitalism. In other words, Conceptual artists fded to establish larger and more sustainable

countercultural practices beyond the radical impulse for self-determination. Although radical

and transformative, the Conceptual art movement remained largely as the trial "confined to

the laboratory of the art world" (Stimson, 2004. p. 289).

Nonetheless, the impact of the C:oncepiual art movement on the field of cultural

production should be measured in terms of its tfisruptive function within a given social

framework (hleyer, 1973). Conceptual art opposeld and undermined the cultural authority to

some degree. It offered important momentum when the artists themselves attempted to

influence an institutional hegemony in the field of cultural production due to the prevahg

desire to take control over their destinies and not follow the ideals dictated by the

dominating authorities. The Conceptual art movlement was a movement of emancipation,

which underhed that the institutional framework of the arts offered nothing more but a

"structure that perpetuates the difference between the educated and the underprivileged"

(Rollig, 2003, p. 100). For example, the Art Workers' Coalition was a forceful response to

ths structure on part of the leading Conceptual artists and was established in 1969~~. The

Coalition's work was to facilitate a discourse among artists and the audence to deconstruct

and subvert the excusive and hierarchical ways for the disseminating, displaying and even

collecting the artefacts of the unrepreserited segments of society in the North Arnerican

museums Gppard, 1973). Further, the emphasis on a more progressive distribut~on of art

through collective statements and innovative w o r h g structures allowed "to shift focus from

the object and its place in the history of art to the more immediate contextual frame where it

was legtimized and consumed" (Stimson, 2004, p. 289). The Conceptual art movement

offered structural alternatives (although short lived) to the art world and crystallized the

eruptive nature of the relationship between the artist and the legitimating apparatus of the art

world and the field of cultural production as a whole.

34 'The Art Workers' Coalition was born on January 28,1969 as a protest against the Museum of hIodern Art in a form of "Thirteen Demands" to address the general stare of relations between the artist and the museums' politics. The initial members of the coalition included Coticeptual artists including Carl .indre, Hans Haacke and Tom Lloyd. It was a mobilization campaign to assert the social power for the artists and their worth in the field of cultural production (Alberro, 2003, pp. 200-201).

CHAPTER 'THREE. RECONFIGURATION OF THE

CONTEMPORARY FIELD OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION

Chapter Three addresses how the field of cultural production and the distribution of

its symbolic capital are being reconfigured with the introduction of dqytal technolog.les,

namely the Internet. I propose that the allocation of symbolic capital is being subverted and

redistributed due to the contemporary phenomena of the Internet and its effects. I

investigate the contemporary models of resistance being developed with the help of the

Internet among agents in the sphere of the arts in^ response to the current dominmt culture,

its institutional framework and present alliances of power in the field of cultural

production35. I suggest here that if during the Conceptual art movement the artists employed

philosophy, corporate capital and information technologies to alter the cultural logic w i t h

the held of cultural production, it is the Internet and its effects that are used by the various

agents in the held to challenge and subvert the present institutional framework of the arts.

I will begm by revisiting the Conceptual arts movement of the 1960s and 1970s to

establish its legacy and meaning for the current Geld of cultural production. I suggest that

the contemporary online-based nomadic gallery echoes Seth Seguelab's art gallery as the

world. Current developments in the field of cultural production have also been prophesized

by Marshall McLuhan, who predcted that electronic media would eventually allow an

35 By the alliances of power in the field of cultural production I mean a formula by which the syml~olic capital is distributed among the agents within the field (i.e. the existing struggles over the distribution of prc:stige, recognition and the process of legitimization of the work of art, the artist and the art gallery).

54

interconnected global vlllage (Shanken, 2004, p. 235). I will discuss the social properties of

the Internet and its effects and suggest that when the Internet, as a larger cultural

phenomena, enters the field of cultural producuon, it offers a radical potential for various

members of the artistic field to alter the established institutional framework of the arts and

to alleviate the struggles that persist over the distribution of the symbolic capital, i.e. the

prestige, recognition and legitirnization of the artist and the work of art; the Internet creates

a new, unprecedented dynamic in the field of cultural production. To demonstrate thts

argument, I will discuss the contemporary field of cultural production and the growing

influence of market forces, and bring in the recent emergence and relative success of digital

nomadic galleries, whtch operate exclusively on-line and suggest an effective strategy of

resistance, a structural alternative of operation and an oppositional cultural practice in the

field of cultural production. To support my arguments, I wlll present f i n h g s from

interviews conducted with Paul Butler, the owner of Other Gallery, a 'web-based' nomadc

gallery; Sarah Macaulay, co-owner of Blanket Gallery, a gallery with a physical location in

Vancouver as well as virtual presence on line; and Keith Jones, a local artist who 1s

represented by both galleries. I will also offer my own perspective as an e m e r p g art dealer

and a co-owner of Blanket Gallery. Overall, my aim in this chapter is to reveal the new

cultural logic that is being formulated in the field of cultural production due to the

emergence and wide use of the Internet.

The legacy of Conceptual art and its prophesy for the global art world

As I discussed in Chapter Two, the field of cultural production in the mid to late

1960s and early 1970s was largely affected by the Conceptual art movement and its use and

interpretation of a number of larger social devclopments. These developments included the

introduction of philosophy into artistic practice (and the arts' conceptual development

shortly thereafter), the emergence of the corporate collector with the influx of corporate

capital in the field and the emergence and rapid development of information teclinologies

accompanied by the new effective means of publicity and mass media. The disruptive

impulse of Conceptual art, however, has subsided due to its inability to further subvert the

field of cultural production and offer an effective and sustainable oppositional cultural

practice. The experiment of Conceptual art was thus confined to the 'laboratory' of the art

world. Nevertheless, Conceptual art has left an important legacy for the present

developments in the field of cultural production. Artists such as Joseph Kosuth and Sol

LeWitt, curators and art dealers such as Seth Segualab and Kynaston McShine and academics

such as Marshall McLuhan, to name a few, with their bold and innovative ideas, paved the

road for the emergence of new cultural practices today (Allan, 2004).

I will start my revisit of the Conceptual art movement with the Conceptual art show

called InJomafion, organized by Kynaston McShtne from July 2 to September 20, 1970 at the

Museum of Modem Art in New This exhibition has a long-lived legacy and

important meaning to the present day. I~$omation was curated with the emphasis on the

politics and idea of globalization and the emergence of a 'global where "artists,

curators and art dealers have performed a mutual exchanpg of roles while s d maintaining

their respective titles" (Allan, 2004, p. 145). The significant part of the show was 1:he creation

of a catalogue, whch operated as a composition of artworks and whch became an important

36 Information was part of a series of shows held in North America and Europe and followed earlier group exhibitions of Conceptual art and related tendencies. 37 The term was coined by Marshall AIcLuhan in his Understlznding Media. McLuhan was largely involved in the Information show.

form of extensive dissemination of information, ideas, photographs, and documents

pertaining to the theme of the show. In~omation, although based in New York, was global in

its outreach. The catalogue's essays and visual content stressed global interconnectedness,

where "margins cease[d] to exist on the planet" (Allan, 2004, p. 154). With the catalogue, the

artists did not have to be physically present in an art centre of the world and could

contribute to the show easier without the traditional protocol prescribed by the art world

essential for recognition. "A democratized global art world was posited that hnctioned

through integrated communication systems, but where artists may live elsewhere while art-

world intermediaries remained operating from [.he centres" (Allan, 2004, p. 154). Infomatian

was an unprecedented event in the field of cultural production as it decentralized the

production of the actual artwork and its symbolic meaning, its circulation and distribution.

Infomation allowed, to a certain degree, to temporarily remove common incidences of artists'

marginalization and exclusion due to their geographical remoteness. The sipficance of

Infomation to the field of cultural production was in that the Information's catalogue

subverted the distribution of symbolic capital bv elevating symbolic exclusion due to

geographc dislocation, and allowing the recognttion and legitimization for artists with a

widely distributed and integrated communication system (i.e. the catalogue).

The ideas expressed in the Information catalogue were significantly influenced by

Marshall McLuhan's theories on a globalized and interconnected world. The Infoolmation

archive contains over twenty issues of "The Marshall McLuhan DEW-LINE newsletter of

1969-70, published in New York" (Man, 2004, p. 152). McLuhan is the only non--art-world

member included to this degree in the exhibitiorl archive: he contributed images of

contemporary travel and technologcal devices iricludmg telephones, typewriters, computers,

televisions, cars, jets, and telex machines. McI,uhan communicated the theme of global

interconnectedness from the cover of the catalogue, "while inside, globalization [was] linked

positively to countercultural manifestations" (Man, 2004, p. 152). In h s influential 1964

book, Under~tanding Media, IvIcl~han declared that "the medmm is the message" and " that

the introduction of new technologies creates new living environments that are themselves

active historical processes" (Allan, 2004, p. 152). McLuhan argued that "technology is a

factor allowing an expansion of consciousness and sensibility from the individual to the

globe and electronic speed created a closer global proximity, multiplying interrelationshps

between peoples, and thereby causing a relaxation of national sovereignties" and

deterritoriali~in~ world (Allan, 2004, p. 153). Mchhan's contribution to Informa,tion echoed

Seth Siegelaub's "metaphors of a shrinlung world of complex connectivity" (Alberro, 2003,

p. 153) and his idea "that would come to fruitifion only at the end of [the twentieth] century:

the global art world" (Alberro, 2003, p. 161).

The 'shrinlung world of complex connectivity' has come to fruition and is now being

manifested in the field of cultural production through the emergence and rapid development

of digital technologies, namely the Internet, and its opportunities for new forms of spatiality

and mobility. One such contemporary manifest:~ti.on is the emergence of the online,

'nomadic' art gallery, whch operates virtually with no physical location: the art gallery's space

is literally non-existent. It is called 'nomadic' since it is a physically mobile entity without

home, representing and promoting its artists internationally and travelling around the world

to international art fairs and collector^^^. It can be argued that the nomadic, on-line based art

gallery subverts the established hierarchy of the ar t world and the traditional fom.ula of art

38 The art world is influenced by market forces with the demands on internationalisation and glob:ilization, where art fairs, biennials, triennials, and other various art festivals drive the art market value on the works of art. As such, for the art gallery it is increasingly important to be highly mobile to be able to earn the symbolic capital including the prestige and recognition of the art gallery among collectors and general clientele; this theme will be discussed later in this Chapter.

gallery operation. By having virtually no overhead (i.e. economic capital expense due to

rent), the on-line based nomadic gallery is liberal-ed Gom the chains and burdens of the

physical space; it is able to follow its vision and represent artists around the globe. However,

before discussing this phenomenon in more detail, let's examine the Internet as a visual

medmm and as it pertains to the field of cultural production.

The Internet and the contemporary social context

The Internet became a visual medium and the instrument of artistic activity in the

late 1990s. Arguably, the Web became so popular due to its ability to create and distribute

visual images and "its emergence at the same time that consumer grade computers began to

support graphic user interface software, making it possible to both generate and display

images and icons" (Sturken & Cartwright, 2001, p. 339). David Rodowick captures and

prophesizes:

The manufacture of physical objects . . . is being augmented by the new globally managed commodities -- data (access to information and entertainment) ... Like the proliferation of automobiles in the post-war period, however, with their concomitant transformation of social time and space, as information becomes increasingly conlrnodified, it rapidly becomes a necessity rather than a luxury. Access to the Internet will soon become no less essential to the quotidian transactions of daily life than it already is for the global movements of international stock markets and commcdty exchanges, which take advantage of the untrarnmelled speed and borderless nature of information for their own particular forms of arbitrage (Rodowick, 2001, p. 215).

The emphasis on visual sensorium dramatically changed the fate of the Internet. The

fast development of computer imaging, multimdii and hypertext with its ethos of

universality made the Web a commercial domain in the early 1990s~~. It is now ersential to

have a website if one wants to communicate hk/'her ideas in the world. It is also a common

occurrence to have a website for a business; commercial web domains u t h e images to

capture the attention of potential consumers.

A simple website can draw an audence across the globe. The availability of visual

interactive communication at a high speed made the World Wide Web 0 :i master tool

with a decentralized structure that can connect the globe. As a result, the WWW produces

social systems such as organizations and functional systems, "which produce and reproduces

themselves through sequences of communication" (Rasmussen, 2003, p. 445). Its

importance is in the self-production of societal fi~nction systems, such as art, politics,

economics, and science7' (Rasmussen, 2003, p. 44.5). Sociologically speaking, the 'WWW

offers "a society consisting of . . . autonomous . . . social systems . . . a global society of

societies without global control" (Rasmussen, 2003, p. 462). Thls society or sociological

systems focus on communication and differentiation, it mediates all kinds of corrununication

such as organizations, personal interaction and ranges from financial markets, artistic

experimentation and representation, to games and scientific publications. "The Internet is a

set of media that manipulates system communication in time and space" (Rasmussen, 2003,

p. 464). In other words, the Intemet allows the various kinds of communication in new

temporal and spatial modes.

The web facditates a broad range of expressive activities and thus allows new

possibilities for political and artistic expression :ic:ross geographic distances. These

39 "The Web is a region of the Intemet linking vast quanhties of information stored in 6les of computers around the world" (Sturken & Cartwright, 2001, p. 338). hioreover, "[tlhe ethos of universality and the idea of a web-like structure that would make all information universally available are widely regarded as h:iving originated with computer pioneer Vaannevar Bush" (Sturken & Camvright, 2001, p. 339).

possibhties xguably "collapse distances and democratize knowledge" (Sturken ik

Cartwright, 2001, p. 345). "Technical and symholic media of communication . . . allow for

innumerable networks, independent of knowledge of the indviduals involved, their social

status, their social context, morality, integrity, a.nd so on" (Rasmussen, 2003, pp. 464-465). It

can also be suggested that the web, by providing this decentralized system of information

and knowledge, also allows for the creation of '.'independent symbolic meaning,"' to speak in

Bourdieu's language. The circulation of images and the social production of meaning are

tightly interconnected: " the movement of cultrlr:al products and visual images throughout

the world is always about the productiori of different kinds of cultural meanings" (Sturken &

Cartwright, 2001, p. 345). The web is now a tool that allows that production of meaning

because it 'converges' image, text, sound and objects simultaneously and transmirs them with

a message at a click of a mouse. It can be argued that the web, with its new forms of

spatiality and information mobility, liberates a cultural producer in his/her attempt to

produce, consume and circulate visual data and its meaning. The Internet and the: WWW

"have dramatically changed the power relations between [cultural] producers and consumers

[and the audience] in the mass meda" (Sturken &: Camright, 2001, p. 341). To reiterate this

statement into the context of the present discussion, it can be argued that the distribution,

circulation and dissemination as well as consumption and even production of the symbolic

meaning of the work of art can be altered now with the help of digital technologies. It can be

suggested then that the Web, with its decentralized system of information and knowledge,

allows agents w i t h the field of cultural production to radically reconfigure the dstribution

of symbolic capital and thus alter the field's power dynamic.

Who is using this powerful tool? 'Digttal Nation' is the term that is used by Bucy in

his Living in the Infomation Age. He describes the emerged group of people whose social and

cultural lives revolve around the web. The I>igital Nation's 'citizens' are technologically

affluent people and belong to "forward-loolung, technologically advanced comnlunities"

(Bucy, 2002, p. 231). They are usually educated in unconventional ways and their access to

information is almost unlimited4'. They are not afraid to challenge authority and embrace

interactivity, get informed and form their opinjons in active ways. Bucy argues that the

members of a Digital Nation are true revolutionaries exactly because they employ technology

to liberate themselves in unprecedented ways: Digital Nation explores their own notion of

culture which is, at least in part, liberated from the established relation of power in the field

of cultural production exactly due to the decentralized nature of the Web and the knowledge

and information it offers.

To translate Bucy's theory to the context of present discussion, it can be suggested

that with the formation of notions and definitions of artistic legitimate practices, aesthetic

codes and validation of art at large, one's own understanding and exploration of ,culture

becomes the subject of one's own experience. Knowledge becomes hlghly fragmented and

subjective: it becomes a subject to what the well offers in almost unlimited amount --

information. '~%IS suggests that the members of"l3igital Nation' including an emt:rgng

generation of artists, audience, art dealers, critics :and academics in the field of cultural

production can, to an extent, subvert the distribution of symbolic capital and alle-viate the

struggle to maintain and/or alter the established relation of power within the field.

'Without access, there is no interface to digital culture - one cannot be included in its social neworks or forms of exchange whether for good or ill" (Rodowick, 2001, p. 215). This question of access is important, but beyond the scope of this thesis. For more information on this topic see Richard A. Lanham's The Electronic Word (1 993) and Erik P. Bucy's Living in the Infomzation A&:: ,4 New Media Reader (2002).

The current structure of the field of cultural production

As introduced in Chapter 1, the field of cultural production is determined by the

agents and their institutional framework, symbolic capital and the struggle to maintain or

subvert the distribution of this capital. For this thesis, symbolic capital includes the prestige,

recognition and legtirnization of the work of art, and represents the instrument and object

of symbolic struggle within the art world and the cornrnunity at large. Ths struggle is usually

manifested in the form of symbolic exclusion from a 'legtimate' existence of an agent in the

field and executed by the institutional framework of that field. In the case of the field of

cultural production, this framework (which canies a multitude of cultural practices and

politics) is defined by and limited to the established places, such as art schools, public and

commercial art galleries, art criticism and art history at large.

External determinants can alter the limitation of symbolic exclusion, allowed for

within the framework of institutional practices. In the mid to late1 960s and early 1970s these

external determinants allowed the artists to develop modes of resistance and forn~ their own

meaning for the artwork they produced. As disc:u:jsed in Chapter 2, it was philosophy that

facditated the reconfiguration of artistic expression, which became known as a strategy of

resistance against the bourgeois established forma.list ideals and prescribed formulas for

representation and legitirnization of the arts. 'The emergence and subsequent entry of the

corporate collector into to the field of cultural production led to a subversion of the power

of traditional institutions such as art schools :mi museums, allowing the artist to validate the

work of art outside of the institutional framework of the art world. Finally, the emergence

of information technologies and new modes of publicity and mass media reconfigured the

lstribution and circulation of the works of art, wlde subverting, if not completely

abolishing, the symbolic exclusion and margin:dization of the artist4'. These models of

resistance, although unprecedented and radical in their character, were not effective in

sustaining their Qsruptive impulse and did not offer a structural alternative to the established

cultural practices of the art world. The importance of the period, however, was that the

artist for the frrst time took charge of hs/her career, and made the artist's job

interchangeable with that of a curator, art dealer, educator, and entrepreneur. The artist

became known as "a 'cultural producer,' a practitioner of one form of cultural authorship

among many" (Kocur, 2005, p. 7).

In the mid 1980s the artist's practice begm to be defined as 'interdisciphary' and

experienced a shift in favour of physical mobilization of the artists and the art dealers

themselves in service of institutional ant1 art world interests (Kocur, 2005)~'. I would further

argue that today, the field of cultural production, its dynamic and its institutional frameworks

are being increasingly affected and determined by the market forces whch, in thc case of the

art world, demand internationalisation and globalization where art fairs, biennials, triennials,

and other various art festivals drive the art market value for the works of art43. The new

millennium marked the stage where the artist is an autonomous agent who is positioned

outside of the critique of art institutions and the traditional framework in the field of cultural

production. The artist and the work of art, its success and its exposure are almost entirely

now subjected to the forces of the international art market. I would also suggest that the

-" In this case, symbolic esclusion occurred due to geographical dislocation in relation to the centres of the art world such as New York, and symbolic marginalization - the inability to fit in an established category where the use of which is symbolically dominated by the structures of art world. 42 This physical mobilization, or 'nomadism', is arguably .a result of the global economy with its p revahg demands for mobilized labour and is determined by specific current social, economic and political environments, the discussion on which is beyond the scope of this work (Kocur, 2005). 43 For instance, one of the largest art market centres is in Miami, FL, USA, which during the first week of December holds five art fairs including ha Base1 Miami, NriDh, Scope, Aqua, and Pulse, attracthg a high influx of capital and exposure for a participating gallery. Differing in its prestige, clientele and entry fees, these events represent the current dynamic of the art world in its rotality.

processes of legitimization, recognition and validation of the artist and artistic practice are

now more dependent on the market structures than on the intuitions of museums and public

art galleries, art schools and art history, a framework, which prior the emergence of the

Conceptual art movement held the monopoly over the authority to define what legitimate art

is. The international art market has become an influential framework within the field of

cultural production, which dictates what kind of art is to be recognized and legitimized

through the artist's commercial viability and success. The symbolic struggle of the field of

cultural production is now defined by the symlmlic exclusion of the agents of the field from

the international art market and through the unequal distribution of the field's sj mbolic

capital, which, as established includes prestige, recoption and validation of the works of art

and the artist .

It can further be argued that the implic.xttons of the market driven art world for the

field of cultural production are more tangible nor: so much for the artist, but for the art

gallery as a key institution that acts on behalf of the artist. In other words, the recognition

and prestige of the artists and their subsequent success depends directly on the prestige and

viability of the art gallery and a degree oEits 'symbolic inclusion' in the international art

markets. For the art gallery, it is increasingly important to be highly mobile to be able to

earn the symbolic capital including the prestige and recognition among art collecl-ors, and

community at large. This growing demand to be part of the international art market poses a

considerable financial constraint on all agents uithin the field, and, in particular, on

commercial art galleries, in the form of continuous financial capital in~est tnent~~. This

constraint may further be exacerbated by h g h overhead and extreme competition for art

From my personal experience as an art dealer, to be part of an art fair can cost anywhere from CND $2,000 to CND $60,000 (and probably more) depending on the scale, prestige and the location of the event.

65

collectors and patrons and result in an inability of the art gallery to be part of the

international art market structures and to gain the symbolic capital necessary for success.

I would hke to propose that the emergence and rapid development of Qqtal

technologies, namely the Internet with its new forms of spatiality and mobility act as a

powerful external determinant in the contemporary field of cultural production. When this

external determinant enters the field, it deviates, at least in part, the limitations and

constraints posed on the art gallery by the market forces, thus subverting the current

distribution of symbolic capital. The field of cultural production, with its increas mg demands

to be part of the international art market structures, is being currently reconfigured due to

the application and specific use by the agents nithin the field of the Internet and its

possibilities for new forms of mobility and spatiality. This process of reconfiguration

currently manifests itself in the emergence and the phenomena of the online-based nomadic

art galleries. The onhe-based nomadic art galleries offer a radical potential to subvert, at

least in part, the contemporary Qstribution of symbolic capital and may form a new cultural

logic for the field of cultural production a t largv.

Other Gallery: a new cultural logic

I discuss Other Gallery as an emerging i ~ ~ e - b a s e d nomadic gallery (i.e. its home

exists only in the virtual domain: www.other~$lery.com). I further compare Other Gallery

to Blanket Gallery, an emerging art gallery in Vancouver that operates in more tra.ditiona1

terms: Blanket Gallery has a physical space where it holds art shows and gallery v:~sits; it also

has a virtual presence, www.blanketgallery.com. The sidarities and differences between the

two galleries are supported by interviews from I'aul Butler, the owner of Other Gallery, Sara

Macaula~, the co-owner of Blanket Gallery findings, and Keith Jones, a young and emerging

artist who is represented by both galleries. This discussion hghlights the emerging

phenomena of online-based nomadic galleries at its early stage and formulates a new

development and a cultural practice in the field of cultural production. Overall, I argue that

the online nomadic gallery offers radical potenua.1 for the redistribution of symbolic capital

and the transformation of power in the field of'cultural production. I would like to

demonstrate how a technological advancement such as the Internet, with its possibilities for

new modes of spatiality and mobility translates into a new social and cultural experiment.

Other Gallery was established in the early 2000s by Paul Butler, an artist from

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. 'The gallery operates exclusively online and is a nomadic

establishment as it travels to international art fair:< and urban art market centres

(www.otherg:lllery.com). According to Butler, (Appendix I), the remoteness of his physlcal

location (Winnipeg) from art world centres was an essential factor in his decision to establish

an online based nomadic gallery: "People don't come to Winnipeg that much so I thought I

would use the website as a virtual home base, and travel to the buyer [collector, client, etc.]

instead" (Appendix I). This indicates that the gc.o<aphic location of an art institution, such

as an art gallery, is a crucial factor for 'symbolic inclusion' in the contemporary art worId and

the art market. Butler, a technologically equipped young entrepreneur in his early 30s, took

the initiative and established a vittual art institution which focuses on emerging Canadian art,

naturally becoming a part of the internationa1 art market by travelling to its largesr centres4'.

The main advantages of the gallery's exclusively vlrtual presence is that Butler does not

"have to phystcally watch the space, which help5 since b e is] a one man operation who 1s

45 W e Butler maintains a virtual gallery presence, h s physicality remains essential. The art world requires him to be physically present at a number of art f k s and in the art world at large. HIS virtuality is not obsolete.

constantly on the road either with the gallery, or F s ] own personal practice" (Appendiu I)".

It is evident that an online nomadic art gallery allows an unprecedented level of autonomy

and mobility: the art dealer can break free from the burden of a physical static space and its

overhead and disseminate the works of art and promote his artists around the globe without

facing an immediate financial failure or having to wait for the audience and clientele to come

to remote locations such as Winnipeg. The online based nomadic gallery liberates Butler in

that "Fe is] not chained to a space so Fe] can physically meet with the rest of the art world

. . . [1]Lke a travelling salesman" (Appendix 1). Butler's strategy is to become highty mobile by

brealung free from the chain of a fixed location and the necessity to be present in one centre.

T h s strategy allows Butler to mobilize his efforts as an art dealer in effective and quick ways

and to adapt to a fast changing environment of the art world in no time.

This freedom also translates into the freedom for an art dealer to select his artists

and make them as part of the gallery's vision and identity. The artwork Butler represents and

promotes "[is] refreshing . . . [and] very sincere. It's not trying to be s o m e h g - it just is. I

find a lot of artists are desperately trying to fit into the last sliver in the pie of art .real estate. I

personally find some of the work out there cold and uninviting. " (Appendix I). The young

entrepreneur implies that it is a common practic:e for an art gallery to take on the trendiest

and most commercially successfd artists to fit it1 a certain category, simply to achieve

commercial success. Butler emphasizes the freedom with which he selects his artivts - the art

does not have to fit in any current symbolic category that the art world prescribes, it just

literally is. Butler continues, "[the artists are] all friends of mine whose work I love. Not

q6 Paul Butler is an artist and is represented by the galleries uicluding othergallery.com as well as Blanket gallery (www.othergallery.com/artists and www.blanketgallery.com/artists).

68

every friend whose work I love fits in to the gallery's aesthetic though" (Appendix I)~'. This

shows that Butler's criteria is based on his personal choice, and is not necessanlj influenced

by the current trends of the art market. Currently, Butler's gallery effectively works with

twenty international artists, a significant number and responsibility which may have been

compromised, if Butler had a physical location in his hometown, Winnipeg. The overhead

that the physical location of the art gallery imposes in a form of the rent would compromise,

due to financial constraints, the ability of Other Gallery to travel to the international art

market centres4.

Butlet not only revolutionizes the field of cultural production by disregarding the

traditional necessity of a gallery's physical location; he subverts the distribution of the

symbolic capital by travelhg to art fairs such as the Toronto International Art ~ : i i r~ ' , Aqua

Art mami5" and by organizing public art events 111 Berlin, Germany, Dundee, (Scotland) and

London, to name a few (www.~ther~allery.com/news)~'. The nomadic nature of his

establishment is exactly what Butler sees as hls main advantage: "Fe is] constantly adapting

to new spaces and scenes. [He has] the advantage of seeing what goes on everywhere and

[of] not getting stuck in our own space of mind" (Appendix I). Metaphorically, Butler

parallels the absence of physical space as liberation from 'getting stuck . . . in [one's] space of

47 AS an art dealer and a gallery owner (Blanket Gallery), I would argue that my process of selection is simtlar. Like Butler, I choose artists on basis of my own personal vision and according to a certain preferred style that my gallery follows. 48 In 2006 alone Butler is planning to go to Toronto, Can.ada, Dundee, Scotland, New 1-ork, USA, Los Angeles, USA, Montreal, Canada to promote h s gallery and artists as, well as h s personal artistic practice @ttp://www.othergallery.com/news.html)

4%ttp://www.tiafair.com/ 50 Aqua Art Miami @ttp://www.aquaaamiami.com/)

These art events are called 'Paul Butler Collage Party' and "is basically an excuse to get together with friends and make art socially. It creates an informal environment in whch artists can freely connect, exchange ideas and create art. The Collage Party provides a venue for the artists to present this work to the public - i n c l u h g critics, curators and dealers - while also giving the public ;I glimpse into the creative process and conception of the work" @ttp:~~/www.theotherpault~utler.com/collagepan.h, retrieved January 31,2005)

mind'. Similarly to Siegelaub, who in the late 1060s propagated a closer global proximity,

Butler sees his gallery as the world. By being 'nomadic', Butler earns the recognilion and

prestige for his gallery and his artists, the symbolic capital which necessary for an effective

and successful operation in the art world. Givm that Butler is an emerging art dealer and

the artist based out of Winnipeg, the process O F earning this symbolic capital m w have been

significantly more complex due to financial liabilities that a traditional art gallery and its

operational costs impose on debutants of the art world.

Paul Butler h t h e r subverts the field of cultural production by promoting his artists

along with his own art. Sirmlar to Kosuth and Siegelaub in the l96Os, Butler amalgamates the

roles within the art world and makes them not mutually exclusive: he is an artist, an art

dealer, a gallery owner and a curator5'. When asked about the attitude of the art world to his

craft as an art dealer, he responds:

they're shocked that I am so young and many feel that being an artist mfself is a conflict. They're starting to come around though. Originally, I think the fact that an artist was representing artistlj was a threat to dealers because it could potentially put them out of their jobs in the future (Appendix I).

By interchanging the relatively fixed roles in the art world, Butler creates a radical

potential for a subversion of the distribution of symbolic capital: he gains recognition and

legitimization of his own art work as well as the work of the artists he represents without

having to have a physical art gallery space. The identity he develops is based on the mobile

or nomadic nature of his establishment. Sutler does not wait till the symbolic capital is

assigned to h n by the prescribed formula of the :mt world and art market. He simply goes

after it.

52 O n e must have curatorial skills whell travelling to art fairs:, often an art dealer has to 'recreate' a gallery feel in a fair's booth or room.

Yet, Other Gallery still has difficulties artd struggles similar to a traditional art gallery:

"mike a restaurant, you have to survive the h s t couple of years before you become familiar

enough for people to trust that you are a stable investment. Government funding helps. And

a stubborn sense a pride too" (Appendix I). Butler echoes the symbolic struggle:: that

Bourdieu so well captured in his theory of the field: the struggle over consecration and

legtimization of the artist and artistic practice in various art world circles. To live through

this struggle, to maintain a vision and to earn the: symbolic capital are an abso1ut.e

prerequisite for every debutant of the art world and the field of cultural production at large.

To make an effective analysis of an online-based art gallery, it is useful to offer the

perspective on an art gallery that operates in more traditional terms. When asked about the

advantages of having a real space location, Sarah Macaulay, co-owner of Blanket Gallery,

suggests

. . . [a]s time has passed it has become apparent that having this presence has been useful in establishing an identity. .I t h k that having just an online presence would be a bit too nebulous. Clients seem to identify with the art dealer/gallery.. . they learn to trust the value judgements of the organization. It's a kind of branding I suppose. The t1e.velopment of social capital is critical in this regard, and I don't think that- we would have been as successful without the gallery space. Also, with rent to pay, there is an added motivation to be critical when selecting artists . . . There is a social aspect to having a gallery, openings, etc. that is unique to the experience of the gallerist (Appendix 11).

This perspective somewhat echoes Butler's take on the disadvantages of having an

exclusively online based gallery. He states: "I can't give my artists actual solo shows whlch

would be nice for the both of us" (Appendix I). Keith Jones, a Vancouver based artist, is

currently represented by both Other Gallery and Blanket Gallery. The artist supports this

argument, suggesting that an online-based gallery does not offer a physical experience of

having a show. The audience is not able to "witness the works in their actual physical form"

(Appendix 111). All three perspectives lead to a conclusion: a physical space is advantageous

in many ways to follow the established formula of the art world and to gain soci:d capital (i.e.

symbolic currency), to brand and build the gallery's identity and similar symbolic assets. The

measure of success in the field of cultural production is the acquisition of symbolic capital

and its growth. Butler, however, subverts this beaten path in that he successfully does just

that without having a physical space. According to Jones, Other Gallery allows "[pleople

from all over . . . to see your work whch I think is great" (Appendix 111). Of course the idea

that only local art market and aubence have access to a gallery's artists is lost since it is a

common practice to have a web site for an art gallery. Blanket Gallery also offers that

advantage by maintaining a website: www.bhnke1-gallery.com. However, Butler proves that

the abolition of a physical space is possible and even effective for his art dealership and his

artistic practice. Importantly, Butler's nomadisn~ becomes a new and alternative cultural

practice and may serve as a strategy for clebutants in the art world to subvert lunitations

posed by the current art market infrastructure.

Marketing artists remains important to a n y art gallery's success. Macaulay ". . .

select[s] an artist, book[s] a show with [the artis11 and connects @m/her] with collectors and

the meba. In the long-term, it also means marketing [an artist] to a larger audience through

the participation in art fairs" (Appendm JI). Macaulay's answer implies that there is a

necessity to connect the artist with the rest of the art world and that the artist ma17 have to fit

within the established framework of media and the art world5'. She suggests that this process

is "long-standmg and isn't fundamentally changing" (Appendix 11). In her opinion, on-line

presence increases accessibility to art and the artists. However, even online galleries sttU "rely

j3 Historically, ths established framework allows :m odd 'want-garde' radical artistic expression to become a part of the art world immediately. However, it is a rare exception to the rule.

72

on art fairs to disseminate information and sell work" (Appendix 11) It is clear that Butler,

while having an advantage of choosing his artists and follow his vision in a more liberal

fashion than Blanket, still must connect his artists with the media and the art world at large

to gain the symbolic capital of the art world. He does so exactly by travelling to the art

centres of the world and participating in the art fairs. In his forecast for Other Gallery,

Butler wishes: "[bligger and better international art fairs. More collaborative projects with

international galleries . . . (Appendn II)." A similarity in foreseeing the future is striking when

Macaulay asked a similar question:

[w]e plan to continue searching out artists so that we can eventually work with a solid stable [of artists] and promote their careers over the long-term. We look forward to attending art fairs in North America as well as Europe. In the long term, I see Blanket moving towards the development of stable relationships with collectors, public institutions, and artists (Appendix 11).

Evidently, both art dealers see a tremendous need to be mobile in the international

art world, which inevitably involves travelhg to art fairs and large urban centres of the art

market. As an emergmg art dealer, I would also argue that the gallery's success in the

contemporary field of cultural production requires dedication and sacrifices in the struggle

for the consecration of the artists that a gallery represents; it particularly requires a

continuous and effective presence on an international art scene and participation in the art

market infrastructure. With the rapid emergence of young and daring art dealers and artists

as well as high demands of the international art market for internationalization and

globalization, the struggles over symbolic capital require a careful strategy and creative

innovation. I would further argue that the winners in these suvggles will be those who

experiment with the new social, cultural, and tec:hnological developments and translate them

in new cultural strateges in an effort to subvert th.e symbolic domination that is widely

present in the art world and its institutional framework.

Marshall McLuhan in the late 1960s prophesized the interconnectedness of the

globe, whlch is now being manifested via a globalized and highly interconnected art world.

Other Gallery is a contemporary example of how technology can be employed to achleve

such interconnectedness. Butler, by abolishg a physical space of a tradtional 'white cube',

represents artists from around the world and act:; as an intermediary of the art world from its

centres i n c l u ~ g Ivharni, Los Angeles, New York, Berlin and London. Butler fulfils

McLuhan's prophecy in that he develops a new cultural practice and subverts an established

dstribution of the art world's symbolic capital. By abolishg a fixed physical location, he

decentralizes the process of distribution and circulation of the work of art and a~oids, at

least in part, the symbolic exclusion -- a common practice in the art world. Butler paves the

way for new forms of institutional expression irl the field of cultural production and thus

subverts the principle of legitimation in creating access to the work of art global :md

unlunited: he makes the distribution and circulation of the art works less regulated by the

institutional framework of the art world. The VCWW for Butler becomes a symbolic platform

where the artistic community can develop and evolve, and, at least in part, be liberated from

the imposition of symbolic domination of the contemporary field of cultural production.

T h s thesis deconstructed the field of cultural production, examined the

contemporary institutional framework of the arts, and identified the symbolic struggles

currently taking place over the monopoly and power to legitimate and validate art and artistic

practice. I argue that the field of cultural production today resembles a market structure with

increasing demands on all agents in the field for internationahation and globalization. My

experiences as an art dealer serve as evidence for this argument: to earn the symbolic capital

necessary for success in the art world, Blanket Gallery must reach out and travel to larger art

markets to expose and promote the artists it represents and to collaborate with more

established galleries. Blanket Gallery is now planning to travel to LISTE in Basel,

Switzerland, one of the most influential art fairs for emerging international art galleries. The

gallery is also planning to go to Aqua art fair in Miami, Florida, USA to further promote

emerging Canadian art on a global scale. The efforts I am currently makmg to establish

myself as a credible and knowledgeable a r t dealcr will soon be translated into the acquisition

of larger amounts of symbolic capital for my gallery and into success and international

recognition of the artists I intend to work and gro~w with for years to come.

Employing cultural theory as my main ana.lytical vehicle, I presented a theoretical

framework founded by Pierre Boudeu. His theory of the field guided me throughout ths

journey and helped me crystallize the correlation between the work of art and the

institutional context within which it is produced, circulated and dstributed. Moreover, I have

grasped important concepts such as the field, sym'bolic capital, its unequal distribution,

symbolic struggles and symbolic exclusion - concepts, which not only shed light on my

personal experiences as an art dealer but also provided a theoretical perspective on the

operation of the art world at large. I further established the dependency of the mork of art

on the gatekeepers of the art world - a highly controlled network of indvidual cultural

producers and institutions that determine and impose their own ideals of what legitimate art

is. The result of this dependency is critical for understanding contemporary culhral politics:

the field of cultural production ensures that only the artwork accepted w i t h its framework

is shown to the public at large.

The Conceptual art movement fought to establish artistic autonomy in relation to

the field of cultural production, letting artists be in charge of the symbolic meaning and

distribution of their artwork. With cybernetic and information technology's rapid

development, new possibilities arose, and the fledging global art market started to

materialize. The Conceptual art movement employed the larger social phenomena of

globalization to alter the dynamic of the field of cultural production in unprecedented ways.

It subverted the idea of the institutional nature of' an art gallery space and methods of art

production. In view of the fact that Conceptual art has been so widely accepted and

internalized within art history and the institutional apparatus of the arts, it is p1au:ible to

argue that this movement was a mechanism where the field of cultural production was

adapting itself to the new social circumstances.

Chapter T h e e proposes that when the Internet is applied to the field of cultural

production, this technological development allows agents within the field of cultural

production to alleviate the struggles that persist over the distribution of the symbolic capital,

i.e. the prestige, recognition and legtimization of the artist and the work of art. By

investigating the social properties of the Interner, [ argue that this technological innovation

allows the creation of knowledge and circulation of information in unprecedented ways.

The Internet's egalitarian structure makes the process of learning and forming opinions a

subjective non-regulated experience, which allows new possibilities for the production of

cultural meaning; it liberates cultural producers in their attempts to create, circulate and

distribute cultural goods and their meaning. This argument is also strengthened by my

experiences as a gallery owner. The website 1 personally created and maintain provides

detailed information on the gallery's curatorial program as well as the artist's bacligrounds

and various data pertaining to their cultural prodixtion (www.blanketgallery.com). The

Internet allows me, also as a young curator, the freedom to promote emerging young artists

and to facilitate the creation of new cultural mearlings exclusively on behalf of my art gallery.

The audience from different parts of the world is already responding to my global outreach:

I now collaborate with more established galleries in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Washington,

USA and remain in contact with various individual collectors globally.

As argued, the contemporary field of cultural production is increasingly determined

by market forces: it is now the art market that dictates what legitimate art is. The current

network of art festivals including art fairs, biennials, triennials, and so forth, function as a

responsive and effective means of art distributicm and a structure for art dissemination and

its consumption, a network that "can effectively meet the accelerated rate of exchange and

consumption parallel to the global flow of capital and information today" (Bradley, 2003, p.

89). I have also determined that the symbolic struggles in the field of cultural production

today are the struggles over the inclusion in the :art market; symbolic capital of the field of

cultural production now can often be equated with the currency of the market economy, i.e.

cash. To illustrate ways in whlch the field of cultural production is currently being

challenged, I show that the emergmg phenomenori of the nomadic onhebased art gallery,

effectively operates in the art market and exists exclusively on-line. I establish that a

particular kind of cultural politics is currently evolving, with cultural producers attempting to

subvert the present superstructure of the art business. In particular, I show that the Internet

and new forms of spatiality and mobility are used by cultural producers to challezlge the

established framework of the field of cultural production. The spirit of Paul Butler, with h s

vanguard establishment of Other Gallery, is the evidence of profound change in the art

world's cultural politics and the field of cultural production at large. He has shown that the

legitimizing and recoption of artistic practice, emerging art galleries and formation of

cultural knowledge are now liberated, at least in part, from a traditional ideology 'of the

'white cube' and a subject to indvidual learning and increased accessibility in the field of arts

due to the Internet and its effects.

The phenomenon of a nomadic online-based art gallery well exemplifies how

members of the arts are currently employing tec:hnologd developments to libemte

themselves, at least in part, from the burden of established institutional frameworks and to

develop strategies of resistance that defy social and cultural hierarchy of the field of cultural

production. The field of cultural production, as an ever-evolving organism, is currently

developing a new cultural logic due to the particular use of technologd innovations w i t h

the market driven framework of the art world. It is thus reasonable to suggest that the

development of this new cultural logic is not necessarily a result of disruptive subversion like

the Conceptual art movement, but a natural adaptation of cultural producers to the market

driven field of cultural production and its hlgh demands on mobility and globahsnn. 'The

emergence of online-based nomadic art galleries is a mechanism by which the field of

cultural production is now adapting itself both to r:he new cultural logic and to the new

generation of technologcally affluent cultural producers. Due to its very recent inception,

the online-based nomadic art gallery and its long-term effects on the field of cullrural

production are yet to be learnt and discussed irl retrospect. For now, the purpose of thls

thesis is fulfded: it introduced the changing cultural politics of the art world and provided

an informed inquq into recent phenomenon within the field of cultural production. My

hope is for this work to facilitate a productive tiiscourse among cultural producers and the

public at large, while celebrating a moment of c:ultural emancipation.

APPENDICES

Appendix I: Interview with Paul Butler

(Other Gallery)

This interview was conducted by e-mail.

Q. What led you to establish an online art gallery? How did you come up with the

idea?

A. People don't come to Winnipeg that much *so I thought I would use the website as a

virtual home base, and travel to the buyer ir~stead.

Q. What are the advantages of having an ordine 'nomadic' gallery?

A. I don't have to physically watch the space whch helps since I'm a one man operation

who is constantly on the road either with the gallery, or my own personal practice.

Q. What are the disadvantages?

A. I can't give my artists actual solo shows, whch would be nice for the both of us.

Q. What is your process of artist's representation in the online gallery?

A. They're all friends of mine whose work I love. Not every friend who's work I love fits in

to the galleries aesthetic though. I can't take it all on so I've had to focus on the

particular style of drawing/collage/p&tirlg with a sense of humour.

Q. What are the difficulties and struggles?

A. Like a restaurant, you have to survive the first couple of years before you become

familiar enough for people to trust that you :Ire a stable investment. G~vernm~ent

funding helps. And a stubborn sense a pride too.

Q. How do you think this process is differmt from a traditional white cube?

A. We're constantly adapting to new spaces and scenes. We have the advantage of seeing

what goes on everywhere and not getting siuck in our own space of mind.

Q. How do artists react when you propose to represent them in your gallery?

A. It doesn't happen over night so I haven't noaced an reaction to date. Like I said before,

we're all friends so it doesn't always come a as a surprise.

Q. How do you, as an art dealer, develop your relationship with collectors?

A. Stay patient. Try not to assume what they 'need'. I just make what I see important

accessible and they come if they want to.

Q. What is generally the attitude towards you as an art dealer in the art world (fiom

fellow art dealers, artists, public institutions etc)? Why do you think it is?

A. They're shocked that I am so young and manv feel that being an artist myself in a

conflict. They're starting to come around though. Originally, I think the fact that an artist

was representing artists was a threat to dealers because it could potentially put them out

of their jobs in the future.

Q. What is generally the attitude towards your artists in the art world? Why do you

think it is?

A. Refreshment. Our work is very sincere. It's lmt trying to be something - it just is. I find a

lot of artists are desperately trying to fit into the last sliver in the pie of art real-estate. I

personally find some of the work out there cold and uninviting. Insecure really.

Q. Does the absence of physical space liberate and/or limit your ability to operate in

the art world as an art dealer and as an artist?

A. It liberates us. I'm not chained to a space so I can physically meet with the rest of the art

world. Like a traveling salesman.

Q. What is your plan for othergalelry.com? How do you see it evolving?

A. Bigger and better international art fairs. More collaborative projects with international

galleries. And some staff to help me out - that's irnrnedate.

Q. Will you ever attempt to have a physical space for your gallery? Why?

A. I can't see myself globe trotting forever. It would be nice to settle into a space eventually.

Q. Where would it be? why?

A. I'm not sure really. Probably the city that I personally feel the most comfortable in. I

need to be happy after all.

Appendix 11: Interview with Sarah Macaulay

(Blanket gallery)

This interview was conducted by e-mai!.

Q. What led you to establishing your own art gallery (in a traditional sense.. . having

shows, represent artists and have a physical location as opposed to let's say a

virtual gallery)?

A. I felt that there was a significant art market that wasn't being tapped into. There is a

social aspect to having a gallery, openings, etc:. that is unique to the experience of the

galleris t.

Q. What are the advantages of having a physical location (as opposed to an online

only presence)?

A. I (we) chose to follow the tradtional model of having an actual location for a variety of

reasons. The first reason was rather incidenral in that we found an affordable location.

As time has passed it has become apparent &at having h s presence has been useful in

establishing an identity. I think that having just an online presence would be a bit too

nebulous. Clients seem to identify with the :LIT dealer/gallery.. . they learn to trust the

value judgements of the organization. It's a kind of branding I suppose. The

development of social capital is critical in this regard, and I don't think that we would

have been as successful without the gallery space. Also, with rent to pay, there is an

added motivation to be critical when selecting artists.

Q. What are the disadvantages?

A. The disadvantage of havlng an actual space is ithat there is the issue of physically having

to 'be there' during open hours. This is only a disadvantage to me at h s point. because I

have to work another job as well as look after my young son. There is the extra cost of

having an overhead as well.

Q. What is the importance of your gallery's web presence (I mean

www.blanketgallery.com)?

A. It is useful to market our artists outside of Vancouver. Interested parties can investigate

our stable of artists and this can be instrumental in either s e h g work, attracting artists,

or making valuable connections with the media and other galleries and arts

organizations.

Q. What is the process of artist's representation in your gallery? What are the

difficulties and struggles?

A. We select an artist, book a show with them and connect them with collectors and the

media. In the long-term, it also means marketing them to a larger audience through the

participation in art fairs.

Q. Do you think this process is changing in the contemporary art world? If yes, how?

A. I think that this process is long-standing and isn't fundamentally chanpg . There are

online galleries.. .but these same galleries rely on art fairs to disseminate information and

sell work.

Q. HOW does digitization (i.e. virtual presence) affects the art gallery? In what way?

A. It increases accessibility. I know of some galleries that wiU have a web page.. . but no

website with images etc.. .this has the effect of making their venture less accessible hence

more exclusive.

Q. How do you think it is affecting the processes of production (by produc:tion I

mean the art work's symbolic meaning), circulation and distribution of the works

of art?

A. As I mentioned, it makes information more accessible. I spoke to one collector the other

day who prefers to buy art online from repur-able sources because he finds the gallery

setting intimidating. I really don't know if it really affects the processes of production.

Certainly many artists use technology to produce work, but I am not sure that online

marketing really has an affect.

Q. How do you, as an art dealer, develop your relationship with collectors?

A. By contirluously keeping them abreast of what is happening at the gallery. This includes

e-vites, phone calls, personal contact and mail. It also means social

engagement.. .attending functions and generally having a presence.

Q. What is generally the attitude towards you as an art dealer in the art world (from

fellow art dealers, artists, public institutions etc)? Why do you think it MS?

A. In Canada there is a certain distain towards the marketing of art. There is a vi.ta1 not for

profit scene that facilitates critical debate etc.. .and that is very much pan of he

consciousness in terms of dissemination of information. So, the marketing of

work.. .outside of this arena is not a comfortable place for a lot of people. It'; a sensitive

subject, and I can see why. The system that is operative now, the gallery system, as

opposed to historic models of patronage, puts the artist more at risk personally.

Q. What is generally the attitude towards your artists in the art world? Why do you

think it is?

A. People are generally very excited to see what our artists are doing because they represent

an underrepresented cross-section of the art scene in Vancower. The price point for a

lot of our work is within the means of a lot of people, and the idea of catching someone

before they blow up is exciting.

Q. What is your plan for Blanket? How do you see it evolving?

A. We plan to continue sea rchg out artists so that we can eventually work with a solid

stable and promote their careers over the long-term. We look forward to attertding art

fairs in North America as well as Europe. In the long term, I see Blanket moving

towards the development of stable relationships with collectors, public institurions, and

artists.

Appendix 111: Interview with Keith Jones

This interview was conducted by e-mait.

Q. Why and how did you decide to be part of Other Gallery?

A. I had learned about the gallery through my friends local artists Jeff Ladoucuer and Jason

Mclean. They urged me to send samples of my work to the gallery. Then I was asked to

join in on a collage party that Paul Butler, nrho runs the gallery, put on. I brought some

work to show him in physical form which be liked and asked me if I wanted to be on the

gallery site.

Q. What are the advantages of being represented by an online nomadic ga.llery (I am

talking about othergallery.com)?

A. People from all over get to see your work which I think is great.

Q. What are the disadvantages?

A. Nobody gets to witness the works in their actual physical form. I believe buyers may be

less confident in the idea of purchasing something based on a jpeg. But who hows?

Q. What are the advantages of being represented by a gallery that has a physical

location (I am talking about Blanket)?

A. People can view the work in full form. They get to experience the impact it holds on a

wall in a room. They can walk up close and look at some teeny tiny little thing in the

picture and see the grains and textures of the piece.

Q. Disadvantages?

A. I don't know if there are any disadvantages. Physically located galleries usually have

websites so the idea of people from all over not seeing your work is lost. Perhaps the

layout and design of a physical gallery can cause disadvantages. But the way :I website is

laid out can cause &advantages as well.

Q. What are the major differences between the two for you as an artist?

A. I guess the fact the in a physical gallery I get to have an opening and see the pieces

framed on a wall. I get a chance to stand back and see what I've done.

Q. In what ways do you think your dealers in both othergallery.com and EIlanket are

different when it comes down to artist representation?

A. Well with Blanket I get to have meetings and discuss t h g s in person, where as with

Other Gallery I don't as much.

Q. Do you think these ways are affected by the absence (othergallery.com) and the

presence (Blanket) of a physical space?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you think your career as an artist will change in some ways now that you are

represented by a gallery with a physical location?

A. I feel so. 1 think dealing with a physical gallery is better.

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